


Set in Stone

by Lucinda_Cottontale



Category: MCSM, Minecraft: Story Mode - Fandom
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-05-29
Updated: 2020-10-16
Packaged: 2021-03-02 00:15:47
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 18
Words: 84,020
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23946025
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Lucinda_Cottontale/pseuds/Lucinda_Cottontale
Summary: People, like stones, are all shades of gray. 'Heroes' and 'villains' are merely labels given to define them by their choices. Stones can be hewn, or trodden underfoot, and every person is the 'hero' in their own story. }§{ —A Minecraft: Story Mode Novelization— Male Jesse
Comments: 10
Kudos: 41





	1. Chapter N – When One Story Ends

#### Foreword

Hello there, friend on Ao3! ^^ Welcome to Set in Stone, my Minecraft: Story Mode novelization.

When I first started playing MCSM, I thought that it was a good story, but it wasn’t that well written. However, it had a lot of potential. I kept thinking to myself as we played, ‘I love the characters, but they’re underdeveloped. I love the plot, but it’s full of holes. I love this story! But there are so many things that I would change.’ Observations led to analyses, analyses to ideas, ideas to brainstorming sessions, and before I knew it, me and my siblings were planning a full blown novelization rewrite. We didn’t think it would actually even happen… but after one moment at the very end, I decided that this was something that must be done. I will point out this one key moment, the part that ultimately kicked me down the rabbit hole, once I get to it. ;)

I’m trying to write the story in such a way that you don’t have to have played Minecraft: Story Mode before, as long as you’ve played Minecraft or just know how it works. (I’m not going to be reestablishing the world of Minecraft itself. XP) Still, I have friends and family who I hope will read this, so if you haven’t played either game, try to read this like an original novel. It might be a little confusing at times, but I will do my best to make it easy to understand regardless. ^^ I will also have a glossary at the end of each chapter for anything that I found difficult to explain within the story itself.

So roughly two and a half years ago, I started this project, was posting to FFN, and a few chapters in, I was consumed by perfectionism and eventually called away to other pursuits. I was still determined to finish it at all costs, but alas, life happens. Long story short, over the years, I have learned a lot, and now, I am finally coming back to it. ^^ This time, I'm going to be sticking to a strict schedule, and posting here, and on my Tumblr as well! :D I resumed posting at the beginning of May, and have posted three chapters since. So far, I’m keeping up! ^^

In order to get y’all over here on Ao3 caught up with everyone else, I’m going to be posting weekly until you are. Then, I will switch back to my normal schedule of once every two weeks. :) If you can’t wait until then, or you just want to, you can check out the story on my [Tumblr]() and on [FFN]() too, if you prefer. :D

Note: I'm going to be editing the old author's notes as I go, so some of them will be new and others will be old. :) The old ones will always remain on the original story on FFN, though!

Thanks for reading, enjoy, and God bless!  
—Lucinda Cottontale

* * *

Chapter N

#### When One Story Ends

««««« … »»»»»

Two down, one to go.

Ivor held his new yet dusty trophy close and out of sight as he walked through the halls of the theater.

With the press of a camouflaged button on the wall, the pistons worked behind him to cover his tracks, leaving the entrance to his secret lair completely hidden. It was a brilliant design if he did say so himself, but that wasn’t important right now.

Along with one fewer Wither skull to acquire came one problem. He was running out of stamina—not to mention getting very sick of the taste of his own potions—and if he couldn’t get his hands on one more skull before tomorrow night, all of this rigmarole would be for naught.

As luck would have it, he’d heard about a treasure hunter in town who—for a small fee—was about to make the third skull _much_ easier to obtain. Good timing, too. He had already broken fourteen gold swords getting the first two himself, and if he had to brave one more trip to that confounded Nether, he might just die—if not from Wither sickness than from sheer heat exhaustion.

“I’m getting too old for this,” he mumbled to himself after carefully placing the newest addition to his plan in a large chest right next to its identical counterpart. “Blasted Wither skeletons…”

Ivor walked over to a cauldron at the edge of the room and peered down at his reflection on the water inside. With the layers upon layers of ash all over his face, he couldn’t help but think that he almost looked like one of those ghastly creatures himself. He scrubbed his face clean and did his best to get all of the soot out of his scraggly beard, but couldn’t tell how successful he was since his hair was already coal black. He could think of few things he hated more than Wither skeletons.

At the moment, it was blazes. “Blasted blazes!” If it weren’t for his potions, they would have burned him to a crisp. Unfortunately potions of fire resistance didn’t work on clothing.

He took off his charred, tattered robes and slipped on a new dark green one that looked identical to the other before it had caught fire from the blaze attack. Nasty creature. Well _he’d_ had the last laugh, and now its smoldering remains burning a hole in his Pocket would be ground into powder and used for more potions of fire resistance.

With that, Ivor left the security of his makeshift lair in hopes that this rumored treasure hunter would not disappoint.

« … »

Ivor had never been known for his patience, but time was of the essence, and he couldn’t let this opportunity slip through his fingers. So grudgingly, in the shelter of a dark secluded byway, he forced himself to wait. 

“‘I’ve been expecting you…’” he muttered to himself in what sounded to him like an intimidating tone. “No, that’s too obvious. ‘I don’t like to be kept waiting.’ No, no, that’s not right either.”

He paused, putting a finger to his chin. “‘We meet at last…’ Oh, that’s _good_.”

“Hello?” he heard from his left. He turned to see a rugged looking girl with a blue bandanna and shoulder length orange hair, silhouetted in sunlight at the entrance to the alley. With one hand to her side and the other slinging a pickaxe over her shoulder, she stepped forward and met him in the shadows.

Ivor frowned.

“You’re late,” he stated flatly, furrowing his brow in disapproval. “Petra, was it?”

“That’s right. And you are?”

“Introductions can wait,” he said smoothly. “First, tell me one thing. Are you willing to go to the Nether?”

“I’ve been there before, if that’s what you’re asking.”

“Excellent. And have you ever fought a Wither skeleton?”

She cocked her head with mild interest. “So you need a Wither skull.”

Hmm. Smarter than she looked. That could be a problem. “Indeed. And for the price…”

He was reluctant to even suggest gold. It was valuable enough, but if she had been to the Nether herself, she might have a surplus as well. Besides, he wanted to keep his gold. It was extremely useful for brewing. However, he didn’t suppose she would accept spider eyes.

“How about a gold block?”

“Hmm…” She looked down, making a pensive face before shrugging. “Not useful enough.”

He inhaled sharply. Not useful? He couldn’t count the number of invisibility, night vision and healing potions he’d brewed using gold pillaged from zombie pigmen.

 _I suppose you think ghast tears and blaze rods aren’t useful either!_ He wanted to say. _I suppose you charge into battle at night blind and exposed—because you think it’s ‘sporting’ or something!_

Ivor exhaled and forced a cordial smile.

Petra smiled back and suggested, “How about a diamond?”

And there was the problem. He didn’t have a diamond. Didn’t have time to get one, either.

“That… sounds reasonable,” he said.

A diamond was indeed a small price to pay for such a valuable piece, especially since he wasn’t even going to pay it.

“It’s a deal, then,” Petra agreed.

“Fantastic! I need it by tomorrow night.”

“Tomorrow?”

He gave her a challenging grin. “Is that too much for you to handle?”

Petra scoffed a laugh. “Hardly.”

“Perfect. I’ll be waiting between the two buildings west of the entrance to the convention grounds.”

“You mean that dark, creepy alley by the gate?”

Ivor almost rolled his eyes. “Yes,” he said sardonically. “The ‘ _dark_ , _creepy_ alley’ by the gate.”

“All right. And your name _was_ …?”

“Ivor!” he announced, grabbing her hand and shaking it energetically. “A _pleasure_ doing business with you!”

He felt so free! No more trips to that sweltering wasteland! No longer would he have to listen to the insufferable moanings of those festering pigmen.

His ego complained and he let go of Petra’s hand, backing away and trying to look intimidating. “Now if you’ll excuse me, I have other business to attend to.”

“Ditto,” she said, sounding vaguely amused as she returned her hand to her hip. Ivor on the other hand tried not to spend too much time pondering what that word meant. Kids these days.

She turned around to leave and Ivor called after her, “Oh, and Petra…” She peeked over her shoulder at him. “Don’t be late.”

Oh, that was _good_.

As the girl left, Ivor’s excitement returned, and he grinned in sinister delight.

Soon his plan would come to fruition, and then the world would finally know the truth.

The Order of the Stone might be legends, but _his_ story was far from over.

« … »

There is a way that seems right to a man, but its end is the way to death.

— Proverbs 14:12

* * *

#### Author’s Notes

So there you have it, the first piece to my first fanfic ever. ; ~; (Wow this is so old. XD)

Feel free to send me questions about any choices I didn’t mention or something I added or anything. I have a lot of reasoning that I couldn’t fit into the author’s notes, and if you’re interested, I would love to share them with you. :)

\- Fourteen Gold Swords? — If you’ve played Minecraft, you know exactly why I made this such an obscene amount. If not, then all you need to know is that gold swords suck and are good for nothing but enchanting. (Which explains why Ivor likes them.) -_-

\- The ‘Dark, Creepy Alley by the Gate.’ — Petra quotes him as saying this later—and I don’t know if this is just me—but I can’t imagine Ivor, as flowery as his speech usually is, saying that. Fixed!

#### Glossary

I would like to assume that most of you MCSM players have also played Minecraft, but I’m sure some of you haven’t and I’m also showing this to some of my friends who haven’t, but you can completely ignore this section if you’ve played Minecraft. (Even if you’ve played MCSM though, I suggest reading some of these since I’m going to be going into the finer details of Minecraft.)

\- The Nether — The Minecraft equivalent of Hell, except you can enter and leave as you please and it has nothing to do with the condemnation of your soul. :P The Nether is a dimension that can be accessed by making a portal of obsidian and igniting it with fire. It’s a barren wasteland with oceans of lava and fire everywhere. Any standing water will vaporize instantly. It can’t support life in the traditional sense, but is nonetheless home to a variety of hostile creatures, including but not limited to the following.

\- Wither Skeletons — Tall, charred looking skeletons that wield stone swords and deal great damage on top of afflicting their opponent with Wither sickness (see below). When killed, Wither skeletons will occasionally drop Wither skulls.

\- Blazes — Living up to their name, blazes are constantly blowing smoke and will literally go up in flames whenever they are about to literally fire. Smoldering rods float around their main body which they will use for melee attacks (Ouch!). They make a metallic labored breathing sound and are hurt by water, including rain and snowballs.

\- Zombie Pigmen — Exactly what they sound like. Pigmen are a lot smarter than normal zombies (more on them later) but share the same attention range (A very long one). They’re hive minds that normally just wander around moaning pensively, and when provoked will let out a screech that any other pigman within earshot will hear, prompting him to come to his fellow pig’s aid.

\- Wither Sickness — A horrible condition in which the victim withers away. Energy is sapped, and the constitution degrades over time. Symptoms include dizziness, coughing, pain all over the body. It will wear off after time but can prove fatal before doing so. Like all status ailments, it can be cured by drinking milk.


	2. Chapter I – Getting Wood

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _He’d have to think about that..._  
>  _Assuming these chickens were hostile, such an abomination would be the last thing he would choose to fight, but everyone knew about little zombies. Granted, he’d never fought one, but a fraction of the size meant a fraction of the difficulty, right?_

#### Foreword

My apologies! I know I said I’d have the next chapter up on Friday. Something came up, and I had NO time at all that day, and Saturdays are rest days for me. NO work on Saturdays. Also, this Saturday in particular was a somewhat special day for me. ^u^

So anyway, normally if I missed I day, I would wait a week to post to keep the schedule straight, but since it’s already written and I just have to make some small edits (and I really want to get y’all caught up!) I’m going to make an exception. :)

First, a small note: Set in Stone is going to cover the events of episodes 1-4. It should go without saying, but I’m going to be making my own touches to it. Because 1) What would be the point of writing it if there wasn’t going to be anything new happening? And 2) The intention is not _just_ to fix it, but also to reimagine it with my own vision, because that’s the beauty of fanfiction. ^^ That being said, just know that every change in the story I made carefully and tactfully, to either make the story more interesting or less stupid. I love this story as one of my very own, but… there’s a lot of stupid. X] If any of you have any questions, feel free to message me. You can see this plan on my profile along with some other plans.

Without further ado, I present to you Chapter I.

* * *

Chapter I

#### Getting Wood

««««« … »»»»»

“Nothing built can last forever, and every legend no matter how great, fades with time.

With each passing year, more and more details are lost, until all that remains are myths… half truths. To put it simply: lies.

And yet, in all the known universe, between here and the Far Lands,

the legend of the Order of the Stone endures, unabridged, as self-evident fact.

Indeed, it is only a troubled land that has need for heroes, and ours was fortunate to have so long ago, four heroes such as these:

Gabriel the Warrior — before whose sword all combatants would tremble.

Ellegaard the Redstone Engineer — whose machines would spark an era of invention.

Magnus the Rogue — who would channel his destructive creativity for the benefit of all.

And Soren the Architect — Builder of Worlds, and leader of the Order of the Stone.

These four friends together, would give so much to gain their rightful place as four heroes.

Their greatest quest would take them on a dangerous journey to fight a mysterious creature known as the Ender Dragon.

In the End, the Order of the Stone emerged victorious and the Dragon was defeated.

Their story complete, they slipped away into the pages of legend…”

  


Jesse looked over at Olivia as she finished reading off the legend of The Order of the Stone from the latest and greatest poster to adorn the walls of his cozy little treehouse.

“Cool, right?” Jesse asked, heaving the bright orange pumpkin he’d just brought in from his garden up onto a bare armor stand, where there would have been a helmet if he could afford one. He had received the stand as a gift for his birthday one year, but until he had something to put on it that wasn’t a vegetable or a poster, it had the dubious honor of being his sparring partner.

“Yeah,” Olivia answered, fashionably late. “Way better than that other one you love so much.” She indicated a poster of a pig hanging behind her.

“Hey, that poster is awesome,” Jesse argued. “That pig looks just like Reuben.”

Never mind the fact that he’d had it practically forever.

Reuben appeared from behind the armor stand at the sound of his name and scampered over to the poster. There, he imitated the pose and expression of the pig in the picture—the way he always did—by standing on his hind legs and pawing at the air with his two front hooves. Jesse smiled fondly—the way he always did.

“Jesse, every pig in the world looks just like Reuben.”

Jesse frowned. “That’s not true!” He crossed his arms and Reuben marched back over to him, giving Olivia an offended snort, then looking up at Jesse expectantly.

“Reuben…” Jesse hesitated for a second. “Has a spot on his back.”

Reuben turned up his snout at her proudly as though saying, ‘Yeah, Olivia! I have a spot on my back!’

Olivia raised an eyebrow. “Right.”

Jesse turned to Reuben and knelt down, grabbing his pink face and looking him square in the eyes. “It’s okay, boy. She doesn’t understand you like I do.”

Reuben made a pig-purr and jubilantly lifted a hoof, nuzzling Jesse’s face with his snout.

“Will you fetch my sword for me, buddy?”

Reuben squeaked happily and pranced over to Jesse’s tool chest, then crammed his face under the lid. While he waited, Jesse turned back to his armor stand and straightened the pumpkin to get it to focus.

Olivia chuckled and Jesse turned once more to face her.

“You two definitely understand each other,” she muttered. Jesse couldn’t tell from her tone if it was meant to be an insult or a compliment. He took it as a compliment.

Turning to face the poster again, she fingered the sprig of hair above her right ear, staring thoughtfully. Always thinking, that girl. Jesse liked to imagine that her stiff pigtails were cranks for turning the gears in her head.

Reuben returned with the wooden sword in his mouth and Jesse took it, giving him a pat on the head. And so began the battle between man and vegetable.

“—Chickens?”

Jesse blinked. “Huh?”

“Huuuh?” Olivia mocked.

“What?”

“It’s just a dumb question. Forget it,” she said with a wave of her hand, pretending not to care by going about her business.

Oh. She had asked another hypothetical question, hadn’t she? Jesse had never been too fond of those, but he didn’t want her to think he hadn’t been listening—which, truthfully, he hadn’t.

“No, no. Say it again, I’m listening,” he said, making sure he was this time.

Olivia heaved an irritated sigh. “I _said_ ,” She said, “would you rather fight a hundred chicken-sized zombies, or ten zombie-sized chickens?”

Honestly, Jesse would _rather_ just continue fighting with his pumpkin helmed armor stand.

“Just to be clear, you wouldn’t have any weapons or armor, so you’d have to fight them with your hands,” Olivia stipulated.

He’d have to think about that…

Assuming these chickens were hostile, such an abomination would be the last thing he would _choose_ to fight, but everyone knew about little zombies. Granted, he’d never fought one, but a fraction of the size meant a fraction of the difficulty, right?

“That’s easy,” he said, still focused on the intense battle between him and his idle foe. “I’ll take the—uhh… the little—tiny—little… zombies.”

“A hundred of them, crawling all over you, with their tiny hands.” Olivia started mimicking the groaning sounds of a zombie and Jesse turned around to look at her as she walked in place with her arms extended lazily.

Jesse smiled. “All I’d need is—like—a shovel. I’m telling you, way too easy.”

Olivia raised an eyebrow and gave him an insincere half smirk. “A shovel.” She said disbelievingly. “ _Just_ a shovel.”

Jesse puffed out his chest and frowned. “You don’t think I could do it?”

“Doesn’t matter, you wouldn’t get a shovel,” she said in a playfully stubborn tone. “No weapons, remember?”

“Well… I still think it’d be easy.”

She again gave him a look that suggested she’d sooner believe Reuben could learn to fly. “If you say so.” she said at last with a shrug. “ _I_ would go with the chickens.”

“Oh? And why’s that?”

“Because they would be large enough that I could make a trap.”

 _Oh boy, here we go…_

“I’d start by making a small structure with windows—you know, to make sure they could see me but couldn’t get to me—and then, I would put a lava dispenser on top. Once I had all their attention, I could set it off and kill them all at once.”

Jesse couldn’t quite get an image in his head of the machine she had described, but understood enough to know that Olivia had just jumped through a huge loophole in her own question. He paused and looked back at her with a raised eyebrow.

“If I don’t get a shovel, why do _you_ get redstone?”

“I said no weapons or armor,” she stated matter-of-factly, “Redstone isn’t either of those.”

Jesse could have argued that _technically_ a shovel was a ‘tool’, but instead he just smiled at her.

“What would you fight, Reuben?” Jesse asked the pig now resting at his feet who merely snorted in disinterest with a look that said, ‘I’m a pig. I’m not sure what you’re expecting me to say.’

“See?” Jesse said with a satisfied smile. “Reuben agrees with me.”

“Hey guys,” called a familiar voice, and Jesse turned around to see a happy face peeking out from under the floor hatch, topped with a mess of black hair.

That would be Axel. _Finally_.

Axel squeezed his bulky frame through the double hatch. He was the only person who actually needed both of them to get in. It couldn’t be helped, though. If the roof was any lower, he’d probably bonk his head coming in every time.

“Come on, what’s taking so long?” he had the gall to ask.

Jesse chuckled and Olivia put her hands to her hips.

“You’re kidding, right?” she grumbled.

Jesse crossed his arms and faked an angry face. “Yeah, Axel. Thanks to you, I had to sit here and answer more of Olivia’s random hypothetical questions.”

Axel smiled and said with his classic monotone, “Oh, Jesse. Can you ever forgive me?”

Olivia rolled her eyes. “Real funny. Now can we please get going?”

« … »

Just one more day before EnderCon. In all the commotion, Jesse had almost forgotten the reason they were meeting in the first place. Each year, before the convention, there was a building competition. Nine years they had competed, and never once had they won. This year was going to be different, though. This year they were prepared. This year, they _couldn’t_ lose.

Jesse went over the mental list he’d been memorizing since that morning and divvied the tasks between the three of them.

“When we get to town, I need you to go get the fireworks, Axel,” he instructed, “and Olivia, you go for the redstone components. I’ll get the wood, stone, and…”

Kerflooey. So much for his mental list. “After that, we’ll meet back up at the gate.”

After an awkward silence, Jesse looked back to see Olivia staring suspiciously.

“Wasn’t there something else besides wood and stone?” she asked. 

“Yeah, the, uh…” Dispenser? Nope, Olivia was getting that. Lever? No, wait, that was made of wood and stone. “Don’t worry, I’ll get it.”

Olivia frowned. “You know, Jesse, there’s this newfangled invention called ‘paper.’ It’s amazing! You can actually write things down so that you don’t have to hold it all in your head.”

“Aw, writing stuff down is for nerds,” Axel jumped in. “Jesse’s got this!”

Reuben smiled with a confident oink, and Olivia sighed. “Okay, whatever you—Hey.”

Jesse glanced back to see Olivia stopped and looking off to the side. He and Axel did likewise. Olivia pointed and muttered, “Isn’t that—?”

“Petra?” Axel blasted in excitement.

Jesse followed their gaze to where two people stood talking a short distance away. One of them was the tomboy Axel had been referring to, and the other, a boy with slick blonde hair and sporting a shiny leather jacket. Jesse scowled and Olivia cut in again, “I was going to say, ‘Lukas’.”

Axel crossed his arms and grumbled, “That jerk. What’s _he_ doing talking to Petra? She’s _way_ too cool to be hanging around him.”

“Well, let’s just go interrupt them—I mean talk to them,” Jesse casually suggested.

“Yeah, let’s go _talk_ to them,” Axel said, brandishing his fists.

Olivia gave Axel a condescending look. “Axel.”

Jesse knew well enough that Axel would never actually hurt him, which was good because he was easily twice Lukas’s size and could probably kill him by sitting on him.

Sure Lukas was a cocky jerk who also happened to be the leader of the team that had beaten them seven years in a row, but as far as Jesse knew, he didn’t deserve to _die_.

“All right, come on,” Jesse intervened, waving for Olivia and Axel to follow as he walked toward the two in question. When he got close enough, he saw that Petra was holding something out to Lukas. No sooner had Jesse taken notice of it, Lukas, it seemed, had noticed him. He zipped to grab the object and hid it behind his back. Petra looked up as the surprise melted from her face, leaving a smile in its place.

“Hey, Jesse. Guys.”

“Hey, Petra,” Jesse greeted with a cordial smile, trying to pretend Lukas wasn’t there.

“You ready for the competition tomorrow?” she asked.

“We’re actually out getting our materials now—”

“So, you think you guys have a chance?” Lukas cut in, though he might as well have just come right out and said, ‘You don’t stand a chance.’

Jesse glared at him and had no doubt that Olivia and Axel were doing the same. Even Reuben seemed to be following suit judging by the disgruntled oink he gave. Lukas just gave them a questioning look, as though he hadn’t said anything and _they_ were the dummies.

Petra scoffed a laugh and said, “I think what Lukas was _trying_ to say was, ‘did you come up with a winning idea?’”

“Huh?” Lukas said, looking confused. He ‘bashfully’ fingered his ear, prompting Jesse to ‘innocently’ roll his eyes. “Oh—sure.”

Axel smiled and responded as though Petra hadn’t just rephrased the question of their arch rival. “Only time will tell, but—we’re optimistic. Well… except Olivia.”

Olivia turned on him with the same scowl he imagined she’d given Lukas. “Excuse me?”

At that point Lukas cut in again, stifling the brewing argument, and Jesse couldn’t help but inwardly thank him for it.

“Well, I have to go. Thanks for the, uh… _thing_ , Petra.”

“Not a problem, Lukas,” Petra said.

“Subtle.” Olivia crossed her arms. “As a punch to the face.”

“Anyway,” said Lukas, “see you guys at the building competition tomorrow.”

Axel slumped and grumbled, “Unfortunately.”

The two exchanged one last glare, and with that, Lukas turned around and walked away. Axel frowned and turned to Petra. “What was _he_ doing here?”

“Business,” was Petra’s simple answer.

“You _helped_ that shovel?”

“For the right price, I’ll help pretty much anyone. And hey, _you_ could have asked.”

She had a point there, and that gave Jesse a stupid idea. “I don’t suppose… there would be any chance you could _tell_ us what it is you sold Lukas?”

Petra gave a wry chuckle before stating simply, “Not a chance.”

Jesse shrugged. “Well, it was worth a shot.”

Petra just laughed, as though that were the most ridiculous thing she’d ever heard. “Well, I’d love to stay and talk, but I need to get going too.”

“Where are you headed?” asked Olivia.

“Just meeting someone. No big deal.”

So she said, though knowing Petra, it probably _was_ a big deal. Quite literally. Petra started off back into the forest and said, “See you later, guys!” she stopped suddenly, and craned her head back to face them once more. “And seriously, if you need anything, my door is always open.”

Jesse cupped his hands in front of his mouth and shouted after her, “Tsh-yeah, if we can ever find it.”

Petra continued walk backwards away from them, and gave him a devious look that seemed to say, ‘you know it.’ Then, smiling brightly, she waved back at them.

He could see why Axel liked that girl.

« … »

In his heart, a man plans his course, but the Lord determines his steps.

— Proverbs 16:9

* * *

#### Author’s Notes

It’s not something I’m really proud of, but I’m a very sarcastic person. You’ll see this a lot in my writing, and it makes for some funny prose if I do say so myself, but I have to remind myself not to go too far when writing for characters like Jesse. He can be sarcastic, but when talking to his friends, (particularly Olivia) he tends to be less so.

Oh I’m so impatient! I want to just skip to the fun parts! (Still true. ;P)

\- Getting Wood — I hate to explain my jokes, but for those of you who’ve played MCSM but not actual Minecraft, here you go: This is one of the first achievements you get, and is so easy to get that it’s barely even an achievement, but is so essential that it kind of has to be.

\- The Pose of the Pig in the Picture — This is actually something we taught our dog to do years ago, and I thought it’d been really cute to include it. :) Worry not though, there’s more to it than this. :]

#### Choice Notes

This being a written adaptation of a choice-based game, I’m going to be leaving my notes here for why I made some of the choices I did. You can read these if you want, but they’re totally optional. If you’re reading with no prior knowledge of the game, there’s really no reason to read these unless you’re just curious. In case you are, I will keep these spoiler free (at least for the important things) and try to explain things in a way that you could pick up from context. :)

\- Male Jesse — This is the first question I ask about every MCSM fic I read—mind you, it’s not a determining factor of whether or not I read it by any means—but I thought I should explain _my_ reasoning on this one. I decided to go with male Jesse, not just because he’s the one I played with and I’m biased, but simply because it really makes more sense, all things considered, for Jesse to be a he, and since I’m novelizing it as opposed to just writing a normal fic, I figure I should do what’s best for the story as a whole. ;). Everything that happens really makes it seem like they intended for Jesse to be male. There are certain aspects of the story that don’t make much sense if Jesse is female.

\- Chicken-Sized Zombies — Being that this is the first choice in the game, in retrospect I feel like I should say _something_ about it. And even though all of my reasonings for why Jesse chose what he did is in the chapter, I thought I should note that Jesse’s answer _would not_ , in fact, be my answer. :P

\- Huh? — I did this one in honor of my sister with whom I have this interaction with almost everyday. :3

#### Glossary

Note for MCSM players who haven’t played Minecraft: Read the one on ‘Chicken Jockeys.’ ;)

\- Zombies — Zombies in this world aren’t really people who have been turned into zombies, but rather just creatures. Zombies have one of the longest attention ranges as they can sense people from a mile away. Once they hone in on a target, they focus on it until the target is eliminated, they are eliminated, the target goes out of range, or they acquire a new target.

\- Chicken Jockeys — Chicken jockeys are little tiny little zombies that will mount chickens and run everywhere rather than stumble around like normal zombies. They are deliberate in battle and seem to actually have a brain unlike the larger ones that attack mindlessly. So… Yeah. Jesse doesn’t know what he’s talking about. XP

\- Zombie-Sized Chickens — Don’t exist. :P

\- The Ender Dragon — A giant black dragon (need I say more?). (Okay, fine.) It is located in the End (more on that later) and breathes purple fire. (What? The game really doesn’t tell you much about it. Just Google it. :P)

\- Redstone — Redstone is the electronics of Minecraft. It is very brittle, so it turns to powder when mined, and can be laid out like gunpowder as wiring. (Oddly enough, gunpowder _cannot_ be laid out like gunpowder. o.o) Redstone dust can also be used in crafting to make redstone components such as pistons, dispensers, and other more advanced circuitry.


	3. Chapter II – Pep-arations

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The rain had cleared and the ground dried. Posters promoting EnderCon and Gabriel the Warrior were tacked to every tree in sight. They were on their way, and thus began the annual competition woes—and it all started with an effort to keep everyone motivated.

#### Foreword

Since I’m coming to realize more and more just how wild the MCSM fandom is about shipping, I just thought I should say something: Set in Stone is _not_ a shipping fic. The purpose of this novelization is not to add romances that I wish were there, it’s to build upon the story and the relationships that are already there to begin with and add substance to the otherwise ignored, or ‘glossed over’ relationships, therefore making the story as a whole better. That being said, it’s not like I’m never going to go into ‘possible’ romances, but just because someone is established as liking someone else, doesn’t necessarily mean I’m shipping them.

That being said, on with it.

* * *

Chapter II

#### Pep-arations

««««« … »»»»»

Axel had always been late for their meetings at the treehouse. What with so many people to prank and chickens to torment, he was _very_ busy. That, added to his weight—in muscle, of course—and his recurring tardiness was completely pardonable. However, this time, he had a specific reason for being late, and a good one at that.

Slowly, he crept up the ladder, careful not to make a sound as he approached the trap door to Jesse’s treehouse. Inside, Jesse and Olivia were just talking, completely unsuspecting.

« … »

Jesse rummaged through one of his chests, grabbing any extra tools or materials he thought might come in handy in the upcoming contest.

It was good to have a carrot or two on hand, so he Pocketed three of them. Reuben LOVED the things, and so did he. Not as much as potatoes, but still.

Speaking of which…

“Do you think we have everything we need?” asked Olivia as Jesse stuck a potato in his Pocket.

Jesse pulled his head out of the chest and turned to face her with a flustered look. It was one thing to look for stuff to use—it was another to look for stuff to worry about.

“Olivia, we checked over our materials three times. We’re _ready_.”

“What about the fireworks?”

“Axel’s bringing them,” Jesse told her—for the third time.

Olivia made a confident look.

“Right. Right…” She wilted again and added apprehensively, “I just _hope_ he remembers them.”

That was a valid concern, he supposed. Axel was almost as prone to forgetfulness as he was to tardiness. He couldn’t _say_ that, though. Olivia was enough of a wet blanket already, he didn’t want to make it worse by _agreeing_ with her. “Don’t worry about it. Everything will be fine.”

“But remember last year when we thought we had everything but we forgot the lever to turn it on? Our whole build was ruined!”

Jesse raised an eyebrow. “Do we have the lever?”

“Yeah,” she replied uneasily.

“Then we’re ready.”

“Right.”

Jesse smiled enthusiastically. “So we’re good?”

Olivia smiled, less enthusiastically. “Yeah.”

“Good.”

Jesse went back to gathering more knickknacks and grinned with a roll of his eyes as soon as he was safely facing away from her. Always worrying, that girl.

Olivia resigned with a sigh and at last changed the subject. “Sooo, I’ve got a daylight sensor on the roof…”

“Mmm-hmm…” Jesse replied, pretending he had the slightest clue what she was talking about. He pulled a pair of shears from one of the boxes along the wall and stuck it in his Pocket.

“…And if I did this right, these lamps should turn on if it gets dark or overcast.”

“Mmm-HMM…”

Closing the box and opening another, he produced a small two-piece trinket and mumbled to himself, “Flint and steel, not too shabby.”

“I didn’t want to just leave Reuben here with nothing while we’re at the building competition.”

Jesse stopped and craned his head to face her with a perplexed look. “He’s coming with us.” 

Reuben, who had been off in the corner poking around Jesse’s armor stand, bounded over at the sound of his name.

Olivia’s face fell. “Really?”

What did she mean, ‘Really?’

“I thought we’d been over this, Olivia.” Jesse said, standing to his feet and stepping forward. “Reuben doesn’t like staying by himself so he’s going to be coming with us from now on.”

Reuben oinked in agreement.

“Oh, right,” she said. “I guess I forgot.”

“Besides, this is his first EnderCon. He’s _really_ excited about it.” Jesse smiled down at Reuben, who was now stepping on Jesse’s toes and looking tickled pink.

“Okay. I’m not saying he shouldn’t come. I’m not… but don’t you think it’s a little weird that you take him with you _everywhere_ you go?” Jesse made a blank face as she continued, “He kind of makes us look like… I don’t know… amateurs.”

With his snout in the air, Reuben snorted the pig equivalent of a ‘hmph,’ then huffed off and hopped on top of the chest in front of the window, giving Olivia a dirty look.

“He’s my wingman,” Jesse said, looking back to Olivia. “People always wanna talk to the guy with the pig.”

“You mean talk ABOUT the guy with the pig. Like, ‘Look at the weird guy with the weird pig. How weird.’”

Jesse looked at her, then to Reuben, who was again making a ‘defend me!’ face.

Weird, huh?

Well, yeah, maybe, but so what? Jesse had long since realized that he was pretty weird, and just as long since decided that he didn’t care.

“Reuben’s my best friend.”

Reuben squealed a happy, “uh-huh,” and Olivia gave him a questioning look.

“I thought _I_ was your best friend.”

“Both of you are,” he insisted obstinately. He didn’t understand why the concept of having more than one best friend was so hard for her to grasp.

Olivia sighed and went on, looking despondent, “I didn’t mean anything by it. I’m glad he’s coming…”—She didn’t _sound_ glad.—“I just don’t want to give people one more reason to call us ‘losers.’” She turned away from him to face the wall. “I’m getting tired of it. I’m tired of being a laughingstock.”

Jesse softened.

_He_ was okay with being weird, but he knew that he couldn’t expect that from Olivia. _She_ wanted to be normal—to be ‘liked’. At the very least she wanted to be accepted by people who _weren’t_ weird, and just the fact that she wanted that so badly and would still stick by her ‘weird’ friends like slime… it showed a quality of hers that Jesse had always admired.

“We are not losers, Olivia,” he said.

“We lose all the time,” she argued. “It’s what we do.”

“Okay, okay,” he conceded. “That _might_ be true,”

Before he could think of another point in their favor, she cut in. “I can’t remember the last time we won anything.”

Jesse drew a deep breath, determined even more to cheer her up, even if it would only last long enough for them to win the competition. Then the hype from the victory could do the rest for him.

“But… just because we’re losers, doesn’t make us failures.”

Olivia looked curiously over at him. “How so?”

“Well, the opposite of losing is winning, but the opposite of failure is success, and you’ve succeeded at lots of things.”

Reuben made a show of agreement and Olivia raised an eyebrow. “Like what?”

Jesse opened his mouth just to realize he couldn’t think of something off the top of his head, and then thunder sounded in the distance.

He walked over and took a look outside the window behind Reuben to see that dark clouds had begun to obscure the sun, and the anticipated rain began to fall. Behind him he heard a quiet click, and turned to see the lights Olivia had set up now glowing steadily.

Jesse smiled, gladly seizing the convenient opportunity.

He pointed. “Like that.”

Olivia blinked, also turning around and taking notice of her achievement. She sighed and then smiled. “If you say so, Jesse.”

Jesse smiled back. It wasn’t much, but he’d take it.

A hiss issued from the middle of the room below them, and Jesse stiffened.

“Do you hear that?” he asked.

Reuben squeaked fearfully behind him, and the frightened look that crawled onto Olivia’s face mirrored his own suspicion.

“Oh, no,” she gasped.

Holding his breath, Jesse sneaked over to the hatch, the hissing growing louder as he knelt beside it. He peeked over… and, “BOOM!”

His eyes zipped open at the sight of a creeper right in his face, and he screamed. He flew into a panic and before he knew it, he found himself backed up against the closest wall a good four blocks away. He heard a fearful squeal and in the corner of his eye Reuben reared back on the chest and fell to the ground with a loud thud.

The creeper laughed deeply—the ‘creeper’ whom Jesse now realized was far too bulky and intact to actually _be_ a creeper. The delinquent lifted off his green mask, leaving his hair looking just as flat as always. In fact, it seemed to be an improvement.

“Oh, man!” Axel exclaimed. “You guys totally freaked out! That was awes—!”

Axel was cut off by an angry Reuben who had charged and rammed him hard in the stomach. Though, Jesse got the feeling that it didn’t hurt Axel as much as Reuben would have liked.

“Axel! What’s the matter with you?!” Olivia snapped.

“Great,” drawled Axel, ignoring her completely. “Now I’m going to smell like a pig at EnderCon. I thought we were buddies.”

Now that the fear of getting blown clear out the window had passed, Jesse said graciously, “You had _that_ coming. Cool mask, by the way.”

“It is, isn’t it?” he said with a smile. Olivia still looked very angry, glaring at him with her hands to her hips.

“Yeah,” Jesse said, looking away from her and giving Axel a disdainful look. “Very convincing.”

Axel just chuckled. “The look on your faces…”

“Did you bring the fireworks?” asked Olivia.

“Of course I did,” Axel said, then flippantly brushed aside her concern by adding, “I even brought something for the little guy.”

Axel reached both hands behind his back and presented two pieces of what looked like a small black costume. In one hand was a helmet in the shape of a dragon head, in the other was a set of woolen wings attached to a wooden frame.

“Nice!” Jesse said while Olivia looked somewhat disgusted.

“You brought Reuben a disguise?” she asked as Axel strapped the wings around the pig’s belly.

“Um, we’re going to a convention,” Axel said. “ _Some_ body’s gotta wear a costume.”

Axel shoved the headpiece on next, finishing Reuben’s ‘disguise.’ With that, a miniature Ender Dragon started ‘flying’ around the room, threatening to get its dirty hoof prints all over the floor. It was hard to tell if he was loving it, or if he was trying desperately to get the thing off. And from the way he roared, he sounded like he could either be outraged, or just doing an incredible dragon impression.

They watched Reuben for a moment before Olivia spoke up, saying, “He looks ridiculous.”

“It’s a costume, Olivia,” Axel said with a smile. “The whole point is to look ridiculous.”

“But the Ender Dragon didn’t look like that. It was massive and scary, and Reuben—well—Reuben is a _pig_.”

“As long as Reuben is happy, I’m happy,” Jesse stated, as Reuben hopped up onto the chest beside Axel.

“Happy?” Axel asked him, and he responded with an excited, “Oink!”

Axel smiled and patted him on the head. “Well zippity doo dah.”

Since it was his first time going, Reuben must have been happy to have a costume like everyone else there. Maybe dressing up like something famous was all it would take to get noticed.

“You definitely brought the fireworks, right?” Olivia said, starting to sound like a broken repeater.

“ _Yes_ , I’m ready. Waiting on you guys.”

Jesse caught Reuben, who was running around his feet, and scooped him off the floor, then smiled at his team. “Let’s get going, then.”

« … »

The rain had cleared and the ground dried. Posters promoting EnderCon and Gabriel the Warrior were tacked to every tree in sight. They were on their way, and thus began the annual competition woes—and it all started with an effort to keep everyone motivated.

“Can you believe it, guys?” said Jesse. “If we win this year, we get to meet Gabriel the Warrior!”

Ever since they’d learned about that twist in the competition last month, Jesse had been beyond excited. Meeting Gabriel the Warrior would not only be an honor, but a dream come true.

“And what are the odds of _that_?” Olivia sulked, killing his daydream. Jesse frowned. He refused to start _another_ building competition with his team feeling hopeless, no matter how slim their chances were.

“The odds are…” Jesse paused. He wanted to say ‘one to one’, but that obviously wasn’t true. “…refreshed each time.”

Olivia gave him a frustrated look. “The ‘ _odds_ ’ are usually ten to one. Fifteen if you’re counting the Ocelots, and I’m _not_ counting the weird guy who’s always trying to build with cactus.”

There was an awkward silence, and then Jesse spoke up again with one more sad attempt to encourage them. “Maybe no one else will show up.”

Olivia made a quizzical expression and muttered dryly, “Now you’re being realistic.” She heaved a defeated sigh. “We never win. And this year we’ve got Reuben with us.” Reuben gave an offended grunt and Olivia continued, further lowering the spirits Jesse had worked so hard to raise over the past week. “We basically have no chance. Same as always.”

Though Axel wasn’t saying anything, Jesse could tell from his silence that the hopeless atmosphere was getting to him. Why was it always so hard to keep them all afloat? Regardless, something had to be done.

They needed a spirit boost; A fresh dose of hope. They needed to believe that they had a chance. How could he give that to them…?

It wasn’t hard to cheer _himself_ up. All he had to do was look at the ‘Hang in there!’ poster on his wall—the one with the pig that looked like Reuben.

“Oh, come on, have a little faith, Olivia. It’s not like having Reuben around is going to make us lose. Heck, maybe he’s what we’ve been missing this whole time.”

“What are you talking about?” asked Olivia, looking confused. Well, it was a step up from depressed.

Jesse smiled. “Our lucky dragon!”

“He’s a pig, Jesse.”

“Lucky pig?” Axel unhelpfully inserted.

This conversation was getting confusing.

“My point is,” Jesse continued, undeterred, “we _can_ win, because… we want this more than anyone.”

“How do you even know that?” Olivia grumbled.

Jesse ignored her. “We’re _going_ to win because we’re prepared, we’re motivated, and we’ve got a pig!”

Axel chuckled and Olivia perked up a bit while Reuben squealed in satisfaction.

“Those Ocelot’s aren’t gonna know what hit ‘em!”

Axel looked excited and the perpetual cloud over Olivia’s head seemed a little less gray. He sensed an air of confidence slowly taking form, and that fired _him_ up as well.

“Up to now we’ve hated losing. But today, today my friends, we’re going to start learning how to love winning.” Jesse’s smile crumbled. “That didn’t sound as good as it did in my head.”

“No, no. I’m with that,” Axel offered, bringing back Jesse’s smile.

“All right,” Olivia said with a smile of her own.

Mission accomplished.

Jesse glanced again at the posters all around and his eyes once again came to rest on one advertising Gabriel the Warrior. Jesse wondered if he’d ever become that famous. It wasn’t impossible, and how awesome would it be to be the face on a stranger’s poster? He imagined himself striking a heroic pose, flashing a confident smile, and wearing the cool armor he couldn’t afford yet. The image made him grin dreamily.

_Man, posters make everything look better,_ he thought. Then something dawned on him.

He stopped in his tracks. “Guys! Posters!”

Olivia and Axel both looked back at him and asked simultaneously, “What?”

“ _That’s_ what we’re missing for our build!”

“A poster?” Olivia muttered incredulously.

“No, I mean, _like_ a poster.” Jesse smiled and scampered over to the nearest tree, pointing to the EnderCon poster tacked onto it. “Take this tree. It looks great on its own, but once you put a poster on it, it stands out from all the other trees.”

Olivia gave him a bemused look and glanced around at the surrounding forest. “Un~less, ‘all the other trees’ have posters on them.”

Jesse frowned. “No, that’s—that’s not the point. The idea of a ‘building competition’ isn’t just to _build_ , it’s to _compete_. If you want to _win_ , you have to stand out.”

“Stand out? How?”

He thought she’d never ask.

Jesse continued walking with an excitable grin, and his two friends followed curiously as he explained further. “We don’t just build something functional, we build something fun. After we finish the fireworks machine, like we planned, then we build something in front of it to make it LOOK cool.”

Olivia fell in step beside him and gave him an enthusiastic smile. “You might be on to something there.”

“If you want to get a reaction out of the judges, you build something scary,” Axel pitched in, catching up on Jesse’s other side, “so I say we build a creeper.”

Jesse beamed with excitement. A monster, now that was something he hadn’t thought of, and he _liked_ it.

Apparently Olivia did too. “I like the idea of a monster, but wouldn’t an Enderman be better? I’m more scared of Endermen than creepers.”

“They both have their moments,” Axel said with a shrug. “Both pretty scary.”

_Or maybe,_ Jesse thought. _We could do a different monster entirely! Like A zombie!_

No, that was stupid.

Olivia had a point; there were few things in the world scarier than Endermen…

“Then again, you scared the crap out of us with a creeper today,” Olivia pointed out.

Another good point. Creepers exploded, and when killed they dropped gunpowder—the main ingredient used for making fireworks. It couldn’t have been more perfect.

Axel looked pleased with himself and pointedly added, “Plus, if we make an Enderman, no one will want to look at it.”

That settled it. “Creeper it is.”

“You’re going with Axel’s idea?” Olivia complained.

Was she kidding?! Wasn’t she just defending his idea?

Axel frowned. “What’s wrong with my idea?”

“Nothing. It could be totally cool.”

“It _is_ cool.”

“Yeah.”

Jesse rolled his eyes and turned his focus to the problem that had spawned from his solution. A new idea for their build meant they were going to need new materials, and they hadn’t a moment to waste.

“Okay guys, let’s get to work,” he said. “We suddenly find ourselves in the market for a _lot_ of green wool.”

« … »

Who of you by worrying can add a single hour to your life?

— Luke 12:25

* * *

#### Author’s Notes

There are no choice notes for this one, there are none for this chapter this time, as all the choices for this part of the game are pretty straight forward, or explained in the chapter itself. :)

\- Soaking Blanket — It occurred to me that Olivia is about twice as pessimistic in this chapter as she is during this part in the game, (thus, twice as ‘unlikable’) but I didn’t want her to come across as the biggest downer ever, so I feel like I should clarify a bit. I tried to get this out as best I could in the actual chapter (I try to make it to where things need an explanation as little as possible) but alas, it didn’t come out as best as I think it could have. The reason I imagine she’s SO down right now is because every year they lose one of these contests just weighs on her more and more and more, until she’s at the point she’s at now where she’s pretty much given up hope.

\- Building with cactus — You don’t have to be a Minecraft player to know that this is the worst idea ever. Just to give you non-players a little insight, though, cactus is prickly (duh) so it hurts when you touch it, it can only be placed on sand, or another cactus and cannot be placed directly next to any block. It’s also a ‘non-solid’ block which means you can’t mount anything on it, meaning no levers, or redstone, or torches, or redstone torches, or anything useful. It also means that if it doesn’t have another cactus or block of sand to rest on, it will not stay supported in midair as most blocks in Minecraft will, but it won’t fall, either. It will just poof into its Pocket form. (Hmm… I should have just put this in the glossary. :{ )

\- According to my sources… — It wouldn’t make sense for them to not know about Gabriel being at the competition until now. And my sources do exist, btw. Olivia says later that the show had been sold out for ages. How would she know if they only found out that morning? Fixed!

\- Pocket as in (P)ocket pocket, not (p)ocket. — Okay, props to you if you even noticed this detail, but just so as not to confuse people, I’ve capitalized ‘Pocket’ because I wanted to draw a distinction between the Minecraft’s bottomless-pit version of a ‘pocket’ and what most normal people consider to be a ‘pocket’. That way the people reading this who don’t know Minecraft like the back of their hand (Hi, Mom! :D) at least have something to go off of and aren’t totally confused when I mention them pulling a whole buildings worth of materials out of their ‘pocket’. Hence, Pocket. Speaking of which…

#### Glossary

\- The Pocket — Or known in actual Minecraft as, the inventory, but in MCSM, it’s often referred to as their pocket. In this case, Pocket. Confused yet? :P I promise I’m not trying to make this confusing, but I can’t think of a way to make it any clearer, so sorry ‘bout that. Anyway, in Minecraft the inventory (like most games) is basically (as I said before) a bottomless-pit. You can hold way more than humanly possible, and whereas with a different kind of adaptation one might want to explain that away, being that it’s Minecraft, that’s kind of impossible. Fun Fact: It has actually been calculated that Steve (The default Minecraft character) can carry over 97,000,000 pounds in his inventory at once.

\- Slime — The equivalent of glue.

\- Redstone Repeater — A redstone component that does as its name suggests: repeats a redstone signal.

\- Endermen — Very tall, black creatures with long arms and legs and a stubby body. Enderman will move blocks. They have glowing purple eyes. Most of the time they are docile creatures but if a human meets their eyes, even for a second, Endermen will become hostile and beat up the person who looked at them (and they can hit _hard_ ).

\- Creepers — The homicidal teenage punks of Minecraft. Hated by all who ever placed a block. they are very quiet, (almost soundless except when walking on sand) and to attack they sneak up on someone from behind, hiss and explode. So naturally they drop gunpowder when killed. They look a vibrant green and are a little shorter than people, having no arms and four legs. Though not the case in classic Minecraft, creepers in MCSM seem to hiss a lot more and bite if they cannot sneak up on someone.

\- Cactus — Cactus is prickly (duh) so it hurts when you touch it, it can only be placed on sand, or another cactus and cannot be placed directly next to any block. It’s also a ‘non-solid’ block which means you can’t mount anything on it, meaning no levers, or redstone, or torches, or redstone torches, or anything useful. It also means that if it doesn’t have another cactus or block of sand to rest on, it will not stay supported in midair as most blocks in Minecraft will, but it won’t fall, either. It will just poof into its Pocket form.


	4. Chapter III – Woolgathering

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _She’d left this town many times, but she wondered if she would ever leave for good. Her lifestyle was so different from the others, and she was already getting a little stir-crazy. Did she have a future here, with her new friends? Would she be better off just leaving this all behind?_

#### Foreword

Literally none of my previous Author's Notes for this one were applicable for this anymore, lol. XD In summary, it was long, it was late, it was badly written at times, but I did (and still) love it anyway. :) In fact, I would say this is still one of my favorite chapters to date, so I hope you enjoy! ^-^

* * *

Chapter III

#### Woolgathering

««««« … »»»»»

Why?

 _He’s such a dork._

With his farm-boy getup complete with suspenders, it was amazing he didn’t wear a cowboy hat and walk around with a straw of wheat sticking out of his mouth. If he were any dorkier he’d probably carry a hoe with him everywhere he went. Goofy haircut, goofy clothes, goofy voice and a goofy smile. Not going anywhere without his goofy friends or his _pig_ —which he claimed to consider his friend as well. Always optimistic, even when nothing was going his way. He scared at the slightest sign of danger, and yet he was so willing to dive into trouble. He had no shame, yet he was always ready to defend his pride.

Everything from his track record at the EnderCon Building Competition to his weirdo poster fetish just screamed ‘loser’…

So why the _heck_ did she like him?

Petra knew herself well enough to know that she didn’t just _like_ people for no reason. Up until recently, she barely even like anyone in the typical sense, let alone… ‘like’ anyone. Just thinking about it made her head hurt, so she tried not to, instead attempting to focus on her work.

She finished gathering her tools, intent on heading into town to get a few more things. If she was going to the Nether, she would need more than just a pick and the iron block from her deal with Lukas.

 _Always **blocks** with that guy._

Apparently a builder could ‘never know when he might need a stack of cobble.’ Or _ten_ stacks. Well, at least blocks weren’t as lame as pigs. Why couldn’t _Lukas_ have been the one she ‘liked’? _He_ was cool; smart; nice enough. Kind of a wimp, though… At least _he_ wasn’t the walking definition of _un_ cool.

Petra blinked and shook her head.

 _Why the heck am I even thinking about this?!_

Brooding over the merits and drawbacks of two boys. That was a new low for her.

Looking down, she noticed for the first time a chiseled stick in her hand. Whittling. It was a nervous habit; one that had become a lot more prominent over the past couple of months. You’d think after doing it so much she’d be a little better at it, but her wood chunks always just ended up sticks.

She sighed and threw the stick away with the others dotting out her path, her thoughts once again returning to the mystery of her own psyche.

Where had this even started?

« … »

 __

She’d been to many towns before, and this one looked no different from the usual, though she had to admit the security of this one was comforting after the place she had just come from.

It was a small village that had no more than twenty people and hadn’t seen a traveler in over a decade. She could barely even communicate with the locals for how thick their village accents were.

Now, Petra was a good fighter, but there was only so much one girl could do about a sudden horde of zombies. She had fought as hard as she could to save their defenseless little village, but after painstakingly eradicating the creatures, all that remained were the villagers themselves, already rotting as they too limped over to attack her. Even if she hadn’t been outnumbered, she wouldn’t have had the heart to kill them… so she fled.

To comfort herself, she questioned why they hadn’t been overrun sooner… But they had survived that long, hadn’t they? Did that mean she had led the monsters there? She wasn’t one to guilt-trip, but she couldn’t help wondering if there was something more she could have done.

She had to shake her focus and remind herself that brooding over it wasn’t going to help. What was done was done. All she could do now was try to learn from the experience. But… learn what? That she hated zombies? That villagers really needed to start building walls around their settlements…? That she wasn’t as strong as she thought she was?

Somewhere nearby she heard a commotion, and looked to see a few nervous people walking briskly away from the scene. Curious, Petra walked around the corner, and just a few houses down, a massive building was up in flames.

She ran over to the crowd of people gathered out front. Some of them looked curious and some frightened, while still others looked almost excited; people like Petra. There were already water carriers perched atop the buildings to the left and right of it, so it wasn’t a danger to anyone as long as everybody got out, and it wasn’t every day you got to see a building burn.

“You have to let me through!” shouted a panicked voice from the front of the crowd. “My friend is in there!”

Well, that changed everything.

She wasn’t sure if it was instinct or something else, but she pushed herself to the front of the crowd. There stood a boy who looked about her age with brown hair and tanned skin, and he was frantic. Two older men tried to hold him back as he pushed and shoved, trying to get past them.

“Sir, we already evacuated everyone!” one of the men assured the boy. “Your friend must be out here somewhere.”

“No, you don’t understand—”

She couldn’t blame the guys on either side of the argument. Running inside of a burning building was crazy, but leaving someone to die in that building was even crazier.

Nerves steeled, Petra took the boy’s distraction for an opening and slipped right past them.

“Wait!” one of them shouted, “It’s too dang—”

“Hey!”

A few seconds later, the boy from outside caught up with her, wearing a mischievous smile like he’d just gotten away with something naughty. She almost asked him if he was crazy, and instead found herself smiling at him.

“Where were they last?” she asked as he ran alongside her.

“Second floor,” he said. “He wandered off while I wasn’t looking.”

The boy made a swift right turn and shot up a flight of stairs. “This way!”

She hesitated for just a moment before following him. She was surprised at the display of courage from this stranger and wondered if maybe her assistance wasn’t even necessary. When she reached the top of the stairs, however, she found her comrade bent over with his hands on his knees, gasping for breath.

Doesn’t he know how to breathe when he runs?

After assessing the area she smacked him on the back to keep him moving.

“There are two ways,” she said, but before she could finish, he cut in with, “You take the right, I’ll check left.”

Without another word, he ran off. Amazed, she hesitated only a split second before she took off down the right hallway.

The air around her was hot, making it a little hard to breathe, but the Nether was hotter. She could take the heat, but that didn’t mean she could go sightseeing. If she didn’t hurry, the thin air would be the least of her worries.

She turned into the closest room. There was nothing, so she kept moving. In the third room she checked, she thought she heard something. It sounded like a frightened whimpering, and it was coming from behind a desk ahead. She cautiously approached, and when she peeked around it, she almost gasped at the sight.

It was a pig.

Petra growled in frustration.

We don’t have time for this!

The floor could crumble and vanish at any second, and the missing friend was nowhere to be seen. She just hoped he hadn’t already been killed.

She heard a somewhat familiar HISSS and looked up just in time to see a hole in the ceiling, burned through by a glowing orange liquid now pouring out steadily. Petra dodged to the left before it spilled out onto the wooden floor.

Lava? No building made almost entirely of wood had lava just lying around so carelessly. That had to mean—

Griefers! THAT’S how this building went up in flames!

She should’ve known. The savages. Stealing what they could and destroying what they couldn’t, griefers were selfish jerks who couldn’t make anything for themselves, so they just ruined everything for everyone else—and they didn’t even have the decency to make the mess easier to clean up afterward.

It didn’t matter right now. Their time was up, and they HAD to get out of there.

She ran for the door, then heard a terrified squeal and the little pig darted out in front of her. Her eyes shot open and the next second, she tumbled to the floor. As soon as she could catch her bearings, she looked up and the first thing she saw was the pig’s snout, which it promptly shoved into her face.

“Gah!” she exclaimed, reflexively pulling back. “Stupid pig! Get out of here!”

She got up and ran past it, but that didn’t stop the pig from following right on her heels. Dumb creatures had no concept of personal space. She kept running down the hall, right past the stairway down to the first floor. She had to find that boy and get them out of there ASAP.

Just as she turned the corner at the other end of the hall, the boy skidded to a stop a block in front of her. She averted her eyes when she saw the distraught and panicked look on his face. He was alone.

“I’m sorry,” she said, “I couldn’t—”

“Reuben!”

She blinked. “What?”

The boy knelt down with an awestruck smile, and the little pig ran out from behind her, charging into his waiting arms and oinking in relief. Speechless, Petra just stood there staring. It was all she could do to keep her mouth from hanging open.

A tremor shook the floor and jolted her out of her stupor. “Come on!” she shouted urgently. “We’ve gotta get out of here!”

The two of them—and ‘Reuben’— made their way down the stairs and outside where a crowd awaited them with nervous looks, too afraid to go in after them—or just smart enough to know that everyone really had gotten out, and this boy was just being ridiculous.

As soon as they got through the crowds, the boy exhaled in relief.

“Oh, I can’t thank you enough,” he said, and his pig oinked what she wished her frazzled mind could interpret as a show of appreciation.

But no. Agitated and frustrated, Petra spun around and blasted in his face, “Are you KIDDING me?!”

The boy blinked a few times, clearly taken off guard. “Um… What?”

“You ran into a burning building to save a pig?! A PIG!”

He looked down at the animal in his arms with a bemused expression, then set it down on the ground.

She wasn’t done. “You freaked out and made a huge fuss, all over ONE PIG. You didn’t even tell me it was a pig!”

“Oh yeah,” he said stupidly, rubbing the back of his head. “I probably should’ve mentioned that.”

“No freaking kidding! Of all the brainless, thickheaded—What kind of idiot are you? You seriously think that scrawny little—porkchop is worth dying for?!”

With that, he did last thing she would have expected. He smiled.

“Heck yeah!”

She did a double-take, any further words of disapproval catching in her throat. He didn’t look mad or sound mad, nor did he show any regard to the insults she had piled on him. Just said, ‘heck yeah’ as if it were the most plain thing in the world. As if there were no difference between that pig, and a human being.

Looking down at the sad and presently traumatized face on Reuben the pig, she frowned as something astounding occurred to her. For anyone to risk their own life for someone else took great courage, but to do so for an animal took more than that. It took devotion. She thought it very strange that he would act as though he, himself, was of no more value than that pig, but maybe to him… he wasn’t.

She looked away and, shocked at the shameful feeling her heart managed to conjure, simply muttered, “Oh… okay.”

He thanked her again, but with her mind inexplicably sent into a state of bewilderment, she couldn’t find it in herself to respond.

As she wandered the forest around the city walls in search of a new place to take refuge, her focus wandered between all of her most recent memories. She arrived in this town feeling more defenseless than usual, and after running through a burning building she felt… not just more alive, but like… she wasn’t alone. She had saved the life of a dear friend that wasn’t hers, but for some reason, that bothered her more than it assured her. She had always been more comfortable on the move, and found hiding in caves preferable to ‘real’ shelter, but this time…

Maybe it was just in her head, but this time, the empty cave she found didn’t seem… good enough.

 __

_« … »_

That’s just who she was. Everyone’s acquaintance, nobody’s friend. However, that day, something in her had changed. A voice she hadn’t heard in a long time spoke up and echoed for something more than a distant acquaintanceship with someone. In her frazzled frame of mind, she couldn’t help but consider it. In that village, she’d had no support, no one to watch her back when everything spun out of control. No one would have even known—or cared—if she had died, and this, like few things, scared her. Once this sunk in, it seemed everything else fell into place. She needed someone. Someone who she could rely on and turn to when things looked tough. Someone who could stand up for her even as she stood up for them. Someone who would die for her, someone… worth dying for.

Then she met Lukas. He was interesting. Probably the only reason she even held one conversation with him was because she was in a weakened state. He was kind and generous, to the point where it bordered on gross. But, with her newfound resolve, she forced herself to at least _try_ to socialize with him. She had to admit, she didn’t regret it in the least. The idea of just having ‘someone to talk to’ had always sounded so cheesy to her, but after all this, she completely understood. However, it couldn’t be _Jesse_ , so Lukas’ friendship had turned out to be exactly what she needed to get through this breakthrough of hers, whether he knew it or not. Yup, he was exactly what she needed, all right… right up until her first EnderCon.

What a cruel irony that her two new best friends turned out to be sworn enemies.

Petra had only watched from a distance as Jesse and his friends grew closer together, while _her_ precious few friends grew farther apart, and it was starting to bother her. She wondered why that was. She usually didn’t give a care if the people she knew liked each other or not, but like most of her recent discoveries, she was confident that she’d never understand this about herself. The Creator certainly had a sense of humor, trying to get her to play peacemaker between the two rival teams. The funny thing was, she was about to play right into His hand. If she couldn’t keep the moon from rising, why bother trying to fight herself? Still, she couldn’t help but grumble about how if it weren’t for Lukas’ stupid friends, this wouldn’t be a problem. Then again, if it weren’t for _her_ stupid feelings, this wouldn’t be _her_ problem.

 _Ugh… feelings._

She made her way into town and the streets were bustling as everyone hustled to get everything ready for EnderCon. Large black and purple wool arches stood overhead, set up every twenty blocks or so, and posters for various events hung on the walls of every building in sight. It was even more crowded than last year when they had a ‘live’ and ‘completely safe’ Enderman display. How they had managed _that_ was beyond her.

Why had Ivor chosen _today_ as his deadline for her? The Nether wasn’t exactly the most pleasant place to spend a Saturday, and it was hard enough to go through the Nether, and back, when she didn’t have to go through town, and back, when everyone and their dog was on the road. And with a celebrity making an appearance this year, the last minute rush for building materials was practically a competition itself.

Petra paused.

 _Oh, that’s right._

She had almost forgotten that the Building Competition was held several hours _before_ EnderCon, ‘to provide them time to be able to set up the winning build’—don’t ask how she knew that regulation word for word. That meant it would be happening right now. She wondered if there would be time to drop by and wish them luck. Probably not, though. Not if she was going to have time to get that skull, and that had to take priority.

After fighting to grab the remainder of the resources she needed, she checked her mental list once more, then turned to head back to the cave where her Nether portal was—outside of town.

She sighed. She’d left this town many times, but she wondered if she would ever leave for good. Her lifestyle was so different from the others, and she was already getting a little stir-crazy. Did she have a future here, with her new friends? Or was she just doomed to live a confusing and emotional life from now on? Would she be better off just leaving this all behind?

No. As long as her feelings stayed in this town, leaving wasn’t even an option, but she wouldn’t be satisfied with her life here, nor would she feel peace about leaving, as long as her friends were enemies. She had to do something, but wondered if it was even possible to unite them with the teams being so diametrically opposed, and their leaders each being so devoted to their own teams. Even if it wasn’t, she had to try. To fight. If there was one thing she was good at, it was fighting, so that’s what she would do, even if by fighting she’d—

“Die!”

Petra stopped dead in her tracks. She looked around, and who should she see running toward her but Jesse himself, along with his clumsy patchwork friend, nerdy friend, and token pig ‘friend’ who was decked out in some kind of weird costume. 

They slowed to a stop in front of her, and while Axel looked like he might pass out right there, Jesse rested his hands on his knees and looked her in the eyes.

 _He **still** doesn’t know how to breathe when he runs._

“We need dye!” Jesse rasped, then took a deep breath.

“Dye?” Petra repeated.

Jesse continued, “Well, we actually need green wool, but we have the wool already.”

“No we don’t,” said Olivia.

Jesse looked surprised. “What? But I thought it was on the list!”

“That was _yesterday_ , and you didn’t make a list.”

Petra couldn’t help but give a condescending chuckle. This was so like him. “You at least remembered the lever this time, right?”

Jesse frowned. “Oh my gosh, Petra, that was _one time_!”

“As I recall,” Petra began, “ _that one_ time your build scored lower than a combination egg and apple harvester that consisted of a caged chicken over a hopper with a dirt block on top.” She hadn’t actually been there, but as told to her later by Lukas, it was also the only time he’d ever seen Jesse throw a temper tantrum. The thought of it made her chuckle. The Ocelots, of course, had still won.

Jesse looked offended and crossed his arms. “Hey, at least ours had more than _two_ blocks.”

“Dude, we don’t have time for this!” Axel cut in.

“Right! Right,” Jesse exclaimed, instantly snapping back to action. “Change of plan. Petra, we need green wool, _stat_. Is there any chance you have a stack lying around?”

“No,” she replied. “I _do_ have the green dye, though.”

“Shoot! What are we going to do without the—Oh, wait!” He smiled, then proudly proclaimed, “I have shears!”

Jesse stuck both hands in his pockets and started fishing around in his inventory.

Petra raised an eyebrow. “You just carry shears around?”

Jesse smiled and looked up at her while apparently struggling to reach something. “Hey, never know when you might need to shear some sheep.”

He pulled out a few miscellaneous items and returned each to his Pocket as they failed to suit his need.

“No, that’s—a hoe…”

Aaaand, there it was. _Congratulations, Jesse. You are officially the dorkiest hick in town._ Petra rolled her eyes.

“A carrot…”

The pig perked up happily and Jesse shoved the carrot back into his Pocket only to pull out the next worst thing.

“Ooh, a potato!” he said with a grin.

Olivia frowned impatiently at him. “Jesse!”

“Right, right.”

Petra smiled. It wasn’t uncommon at all for people—especially scatterbrained people such as Jesse—to stuff something in their Pocket only to forget about it and find it weeks later, but something about Jesse getting so thrilled about a potato was just… cute. Still, what was _really_ amusing was the fact that he had things stored in his Pocket that any farmer would have lying around his house, such as vegetables, allegedly some shears, and a _hoe_ , like he might just up and decide while walking through town that he really wanted to plant a garden right then and there on some stranger’s lot.

Thinking about this while she watched him pull out some seeds—still looking for his shears—she let out a small laugh, disguised with an annoyed hand to her forehead, and said, “You are such a farm boy.”

“Ah-ha!” He pulled a pair of shears from his Pocket and whipped them into the air as a cooler person might a sword. “All right, guys, we’re going to gather as much wool as we can in the next ten minutes.”

“Are you sure this is—” Olivia started, but was briskly interrupted by Axel.

“Let’s get to gatherin’ then.”

“Great,” said Petra with a smile. “Meet me back here with your wool, and I’ll get the dye.”

“Awesome,” they each said in some form or another, then booked it back the way they’d come from like their lives depended on it. Petra then sped off and took their cue to pick up her own pace. She was already running on borrowed time.

« … »

When she had first received this dye as a token of gratitude for a _very_ small charitable act, she was almost tempted to throw the stuff out—When would she ever need to dye anything green, especially in such a massive amount?—but now she was glad she hadn’t.

She stuffed the dye in her Pocket and started to make her way through the forest back to their meeting spot. She was surprised, however, when she heard a rustling nearby. She looked around and sure enough, there were Jesse and his friends scrambling about in a flock of sheep trying to get them to cooperate.

“You think that’s enough?”

“It has to be! We need to get going.”

The four of them started to shuffle out and Petra ran to meet them.

“Petra?” one of them pointed her out, and the others looked toward her.

“Fancy meeting you here,” she said.

“Perfect timing,” said Jesse.

Petra walked up to them, acting as if she were in no hurry of her own. She pulled out the dye and placed it in his hand and he quickly passed it to Olivia behind him.

“Awesome. Okay, what do we owe you?”

For some reason Petra was surprised by this question, but she was more surprised that she hadn’t considered that herself yet. She stared at him for a minute while in thought, and this seemed to make him nervous. Being in a hurry did that sometimes. “Mmm… You know what? Don’t worry about it.”

Jesse blinked, looking baffled. “What?”

His friends gave each other a bewildered look, and the pig oinked—one might say sounding surprised.

“Just keep it, Farmer Boy.”

“You’re—you’re not going to charge us?” he wondered, wearing the same stupefied look.

 _I didn’t pay for it. Why should they?_

She tried to convince herself that was the only reason, but she knew it wasn’t. Putting on her best look of nonchalance, she said, “Don’t you have a competition to get to?”

The intrigued look on Jesse’s face melted into panic again.

“Oh, right!” he exclaimed, and hustled his friends back toward town before turning around to face her once more. “Thank you so much, Petra. You’re a lifesaver!”

With that, Farmer Boy rushed to catch up with his friends, and Petra smiled.

She was starting to walk away when it hit her what she was forgetting. She turned back again and shouted after them, “Good luck, guys!”

They waved back, and just as she was about to turn around again, she saw Axel stop in his tracks, saying, “Wait, guys. We need a face. What creeper is creepy without a face?”

“Oh shoot, you’re right,” said Jesse. “We need ink.”

Jesse glanced left and right as though there would be some just lying around, and as Petra started to wonder if maybe _she_ had some, Jesse dashed off and took a plunge into the nearest lake.

The answer to the question ‘Why?’ really was simple, but it was moments like these—moments that reminded again and again of just how far Jesse would go for his friends—that made her smile and think to herself, _Oh. **That’s** why._

 _  
___  


« … »

Consider the blameless, observe the upright; a future awaits those who seek peace.

— Psalm 37:37

* * *

#### Author’s Notes

Yup, same here. :P I hope you liked it! ^^ 

\- Petra — I’m sure my version of Petra’s character doesn’t fit a lot of my readers’ headcanons, but as I’ve said before, I’m trying to figure out their characters to the best of my ability, and her character in episode 1 was pretty badly developed and inconsistent. For example, she acts like a mercenary the first time they meet her, saying things like, “For the right price, I’ll help anyone,” but then she acts all noble. Or later, she says that she ‘doesn’t want to stoop to his level,’ and then later does exactly that with the gold sword. Suffice it to say, I had to eventually settle on something, but my apologies if her character doesn’t match your headcanon. All that being said, it just sort of happened that in my version, she is a lot more introspective and reminiscent than you would expect. It’s obvious in this chapter mainly focusing on flashbacks and history and whatnot, but I’ve also noticed this a lot in later scenes as well.

\- Reuben? Reuben? 0.0 — You—as in the die-hard Reuben fans (Hi, mom! :D)—may have noticed that Reuben doesn’t seem to do a lot in this chapter. Part of the reason is that it can be hard to think of ways to work him in, but in this instance I ignored him on purpose unless he did something noteworthy. I figure since Petra doesn’t really think of Reuben as a person, (to be fair, he’s not) she’s not going to notice every time he does anything, unlike Jesse who would note every little oink and squeak.

\- The Creator — No, I don’t mean Notch. I mean God. God with a capital ‘G’. I don’t know about you, but I’ve always found it weird that a lot of players think of Notch as the Minecraft ‘god’, but those same people generally portray Notch as being evil, or just a jerk for no reason. That’s not how I imagine the Creator of this world is.

#### Choice Notes

\- My Jesse — I was almost reluctant to even bother slaving away for another hour trying to figure out the best way to describe Jesse’s hair color since everyone’s going to picture him however they imagine him anyway, but this _is_ a novelization. You might think this is silly, but I actually find it REALLY hard to imagine Jesse with any other skin than the one I’ve always played with. For some reason, white Jesse just looks really weird to me now. @_@ (And… Patton Oswalt doesn’t sound black. Because… he’s _not_.)

#### Glossary

\- Villagers — There are no villagers in MCSM (at the time there wasn't) but they are mentioned, and all you need to know about them is that they live in little villages and go about their lives trading until they get overrun by zombies. This is borderline inevitable unless they get help from the player because they’re so stupid that they can’t tell sometimes if they’re indoors. Of course this is just because of their AI and I don’t think they would be this stupid in MCSM. My interpretation is that they’re like natives that share the same language but have thick accents that make them hard to understand, so most people generally stay away from them just because they’re so different.

\- Lava — Lava is one of the most common Griefer tools and it falls much slower than the speed of gravity.

\- Griefers — Griefers are there to do just this: cause grief. In this world, griefing is practically a sport. Most griefers at least can take what they dish out, but sometimes they’re just idiots with too much TNT.

\- Carrots — Pigs love carrots. :3

\- Ink — You get ink from squids which in this world you can find in almost any body of water.

\- Stacks — This is barely worth mentioning, as it’s more Minecraft terminology than an actual game dynamic, but in the interest of being thorough, a ‘stack’ is how Minecrafters refer to the maximum amount of something you can have without it taking more than one space in your inventory. For most items, this amount is 64, but sometimes it’s 16. (And some items don't stack.)


	5. Chapter IV – Calling Names

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _As soon as they were proclaimed, the words of the announcer were swallowed up in a roar of cheers by the hundred-plus people, Jesse’s team included. Determined even more to win the competition, Jesse resolved to focus on winning and to think no more of the Ocelots and their freacon beacon._

#### Foreword

Well, here it is! The next chapter! I apologize in advance because this chapter is pretty slow, mainly because this part in the game was really slow, but I did a pretty good job of making it go even slower. I at least hope I did an okay job of making it interesting. Well, hope you enjoy! :)

* * *

Chapter IV

#### Calling Names

««««« … »»»»»

“Did we make it?” Jesse gasped out, leaning against the check-in stand.

“Hmm, let me see…” said the lady running the stand, looking annoyingly calm. She checked her watch and took an oddly long amount of time doing so before she looked back up with a smile. “With fifteen minutes to spare.”

Jesse sighed in relief while Olivia and Axel gave each other a high-five.

“A little frazzled, are we?”

“Uh. Yeah,” Jesse mumbled, taking in the area around them. The forest atmosphere invoked an air of creativity, and the slight overcast from the morning rain made the weather perfect for building. Nothing harder than trying to build under an angry sun.

“Forget to set your daylight sensor?”

Jesse looked at the lady and blinked. He assumed her comment had something to do with redstone, but before he could ask, Olivia happily stepped in. “Some people use a sort of redstone clock to wake themselves up early with note blocks or lights. She’s asking if we slept in.”

“Sounds like torture,” Axel grumbled.

“Bravo!” the lady praised. “No one ever gets that joke. You must be very good with redstone.”

Olivia blushed slightly and looked down at the floor. “Oh, not really.”

“And modest. You know, you remind me of my daughter, Gloria, in Redstonia. Very talented girl. She even looks a bit like you. Of course, Redstonia has a bad habit of rooting the humility out of people. I guess it’s all the stuck-up engineers there.”

“You’ve been to Redstonia?” asked Olivia.

“Once or twice,” the lady said with a smile. “Just to visit.”

“I’ve always wanted to go there. What’s it like?”

She shrugged. “Lots of sand, lots of redstone, lots of red sandstone.”

Jesse yawned.

“Wow!” exclaimed Olivia. “That sounds awesome!”

“It is pretty nice, yeah.”

“I would love to meet Ellegaard.”

“Aah, so would my daughter. I think you two would get along.”

“Is she good with redstone too?”

“I would think so! She learned from the best!” she chuckled. “Kidding.”

Jesse yawned louder.

“What have you made?”

“Well…”

Jesse’s brain practically turned to mush when the lady started listing off a dozen of what he assumed were machines of some kind. While Olivia looked genuinely interested, even enraptured by this technobabble, Axel rolled his eyes and mouthed something to Jesse. Either ‘girls’ or ‘nerds’. Either one would have been appropriate.

Finally, Jesse loudly cleared his throat, and Olivia looked back at him.

“Oh, right. We’d better, uhh… yeah.”

The lady chuckled again. “All righty, then.” She grabbed her quill and put it to her paper. “Team name?”

Jesse looked at her, stupefied as Axel read his mind. “Team name?”

“You didn’t hear? Gabriel the Warrior wants to announce the winning team at the keynote tonight, so we’re having every team pick a name this year.”

Suddenly, the pressure was on, and Jesse couldn’t help but think that in this respect, the Ocelots had already beaten them.

“We are _not_ ready for this,” Axel spoke up after a moment of silence.

“So much for losing anonymously,” added Olivia, though Jesse couldn’t remember a single time any of them had mentioned that. He loathed to think _that_ was her best case scenario.

“Umm… Could we—have just a minute?” Jesse asked.

Still smiling, the lady nodded her head. “I don’t see why not.”

Jesse smiled back, then led the three of them off to a nearby tree where they huddled together.

“We’ve never had to choose a team name before,” Olivia said.

“Yeah, yeah, I know,” said Jesse. “Any ideas?”

Axel and Olivia looked at each other and then back at him with embarrassed smiles that said, ‘it’s all you, Jesse.’

Jesse bit his lip and averted his eyes, thinking.

“How about, the ‘Order of the Pig’?” he said dramatically.

Reuben gave a pig-laugh. Olivia raised an eyebrow and she and Axel each spoke in turn.

“Really?”

“Is it meant to tie us to Reuben, or are you making fun of me?”

No luck there. “The ‘Dead Enders’?”

“Woah. Sounds like a name for pirates,” drawled Axel.

“What does it even mean?” questioned Olivia.

Jesse grunted in frustration. While Olivia seemed perfectly happy shooting down ideas she didn’t even help come up with, and neither of them seemed to have any of their own, Jesse thought hard for another moment. Just when he was about to give up, something came to him that he was sure they would like.

Jesse smiled. “I know! The Nether Maniacs!”

“You just thought of that right now?” Axel asked.

“Yup,” Jesse stated proudly.

“We’ve never even been to the Nether,” Olivia cut in, and at that, Jesse threw hands up and exclaimed in exasperation, “Who the Nether cares?!”

Olivia gasped. “Jesse! Watch your mouth!”

“Well we can’t just go in as the ‘No Names,’” Jesse said, and then their attention was turned to Axel. “Guys, I got it! The ‘Order of the Ender Maniacs’!”

Olivia gave him a perturbed look. “I don’t know about tha—”

“Or if you’d prefer, we could go as the ‘Dead Nether Pigs’.”

Olivia scowled. “At this rate, I think I’d be fine going in as the ‘No Names’. Or if we NEVER want to live it down, we could just go in as ‘Dead Meat’.”

An awkward silence fell on them. Finally, Jesse spoke up again. “Dead Meat it is.”

Olivia planted a hand on her forehead with a sigh, while Axel, despite looking speechless, also looked like he was holding back laughter.

They returned to the booth, and right as Jesse was about to say ‘The Order of the Ender Maniacs,’ an idea dawned on him. His eyes lit up, and with one last attempt at salvaging whatever grain of hope his comrades had left, he announced, “We’re the Quincunx Stars.”

Olivia and Axel were apparently left speechless from the lack of criticism they gave.

“Okay, Quincunx Stars,” she said after they finished checking in, jotting the name down on her paper, then smiling up at Jesse once more. “You guys are in Booth 5.”

Jesse smiled. It sounded even cooler when someone else said it.

Axel had to squeeze through a gate far too small for him to get in, then stopped to help Reuben get his wings through. Once they were inside, Olivia marveled, “Wow Jesse, that’s so cool!”

Axel caught up and added, “It’s more than just ‘cool’. It’s awesome!”

Jesse smiled bashfully, rubbing the back of his head.

“Yeah,” Olivia agreed enthusiastically. Then she paused and put a finger to her chin in thought for a moment. “What does it mean?”

Jesse blinked. He was hoping she wouldn’t ask that.

“I… have no idea.”

Olivia blinked this time, and he explained further, “I just saw it on a poster.”

“Oh. Now I’ve got to look it up to make sure it doesn’t mean anything dumb.”

“Oh, will you relax, Olivia? No one else is going to know what it means either.”

“Yeah, Olivia,” said Axel. “It doesn’t matter, it’s still a cool name.”

Jesse smiled triumphantly as Axel went on.

“Man, we have what we’re building and all the stuff for it. We’ve got a cool name, a mascot,” Axel looked down at Reuben who oinked happily. “We are so ready.”

“I think this might be the first time we’ve completely decided on something _before_ getting to the competition,” Olivia said, sounding hopeful… for _once_. “This year, it’s going to be different. I just know it!”

“That’s the spirit.”

Of course, just when Jesse thought they would enter one of these things with a shred of hope, some random guy wearing a ‘Soren the Architect’ hat and an EnderCon t-shirt ruined everything in the short time it took him to walk by them and say, “Nice pig, losers.”

Jesse glanced back at his team, and of course, Axel looked downhearted while Olivia wore an indignant scowl. Jesse continued on and said the only thing that came to mind that he thought might help. Nothing.

Like most years, Olivia and Axel headed straight for their booth to compare themselves to the competition, while Jesse made the rounds to _survey_ the competition.

Unlike most years, he was surprised to find that a competition where usually only five, ten teams competed, was now crowded with over a hundred people from what looked like fifty different booths.

“It’s like everyone in town is here,” he mumbled to himself. There had never been so many people at this competition, but then again, Gabriel the Warrior had never been the grand prize before. It made sense after all, but it was a good thing they had reserved a booth in advance.

Most of the contestants in Booth 1 were pacing back and forth per the norm; Always punctual, never prepared. Booth 2 seemed confident despite the fact that their cobblestone generator was about to become the world’s most short-lived obsidian generator. Everyone in Booth 3, however, was running around like chickens that had been standing too close to lava. And then there was Booth 4.

Jesse stopped.

“I don’t like the look of this,” he muttered to himself. It was bad enough having to compete against the Ocelots, but being within shouting distance during the competition didn’t bode well for keeping everyone going under pressure. Maybe they _shouldn’t_ have reserved a spot.

Jesse looked over at his own booth in hopes of seeing Axel and Olivia completely oblivious to this, but of course, they were _already_ worrying behind his back. Groaning in frustration, he walked over to them.

“Man. They’ve got matching leather jackets and everything,” Olivia worried as he approached.

“So cool…” Axel worried back.

Jesse looked again at the Ocelots, who were now setting up their materials… or rather, _Lukas_ was setting up their materials and briefing the rest of them while they stood watching idly, barely listening—or so Jesse assumed. Lukas demonstrated something by pulling out a small glass item with another small glowing block inside. Jesse considered jumping on the worry wagon himself when he recognized what it was.

Axel perked up and stood on his toes—as if he needed the extra height boost—peering anxiously over their fence into the Ocelot’s building area.

“Is that a freakin’ beacon?” he said. “They have a freakin’ beacon?! _Freacon beacon_?!”

Freacon Beacon was right. Beacons were crafted using two of the most valuable ingredients known to man; Obsidian, and a Nether Star. Heaven knows where they got one of those. Certainly, they couldn’t have killed their own Wither, so how in the Overworld had they gotten their hands on a beacon?

Jesse’s eyes widened when it hit him. _That must be what Petra sold them yesterday._

“That’s stained glass,” Olivia observed, pointing out the variety of colored glass that Lukas pulled out next. “They aren’t just building a beacon… they’re building a _rainbow_ beacon.”

Jesse murmured, “A beacon sounds awesome,” and instantly regretted it.

“What’s that?” Olivia asked.

“Oh, nothing! I said… nothing.”

Regardless, Olivia wilted and said, “We’re gonna lose.”

Just then, as though summoned by the mere dread of his presence, one of the members of the Jerkelots strutted over, looking important. If it weren’t for the stupid grin plastered on his empty face, Jesse _might_ think he _was_ important.

“Well, well, well,” Aiden taunted, calling the attention of Thing 1 and Thing 2. “If it isn’t the Order of the Losers.”

Jesse raised an eyebrow at him. This comment might have been insulting had he not heard the same joke worded differently every year since their third competition.

“Great, the fail squad’s here,” said the girl Ocelot whose name Jesse could never remember… ‘Lila’ or ‘Mia’ or something like that.

Thing 2—AKA Gill—gave Jesse a snide look and said, “Lukas, get a load of these losers.”

Lukas pulled his head out of a chest and glanced over at them just long enough to not do anything about it. Then he turned back to his task.

“We’re just looking,” Olivia hastened to explain with an irritated look on her face.

Aiden smirked. “There’ll be plenty of time for you all to look at it after it wins and gets shown at EnderCon. Well…” he paused, regarding Reuben, “maybe not all of you. EnderCon doesn’t allow outside food or drink.”

Reuben flinched and Jesse scowled back at Aiden, trying to think of some witty comeback. Before he could, though, Aiden added, “I’m talking about your pig.” And as though he were talking to someone at his own intelligence level, Aiden explained even further still, “I’m saying he’s food.”

Jesse blinked, unsure if he should qualify that insult with a response. Any other time Jesse knew he could have said _something_ to make him sound stupid, but it seemed Aiden had already done that.

He decided to just let him bury himself.

Aiden’s snide smile finally disappeared and he broke eye contact with Jesse for the first time, looking around as though pondering something else to say—like he hadn’t said enough already.

He supposed eventually Lukas had had enough as well, because he finally came storming over with an irate look on his face. “Stop wasting your time, Aiden,” he said, then pointed back to their own booth. “We’ve got work to do.”

Jesse couldn’t help but smile at Aiden being told off by his own boss, and relished the defeated scowl Aiden wore when he turned back to Jesse and said, “You’re lucky I’m busy.”

_Lucky my bucket,_ Jesse thought. If it weren’t for Lukas every year, the rest of the Ocelots would just make fun of Jesse’s team until the contest was over and they would have no trouble winning. Stupid Lukas.

The rest of the Ocelots meandered past Lukas back to their booth, but Lukas stayed put. He stared after them, and once they were gone, he looked back to Jesse and his team and took a step forward.

“Listen, no hard feelings guys. I know tempers tend to run hot for these competitions, but why don’t we just forget about all this, and, y’know… make this about how cool our builds are.”

Jesse peered behind Lukas at the rest of his team, who were still watching instead of working, and deduced from the looks on their infuriated faces that they hadn’t reached the same conclusion as their ‘leader’. It was hard to take his call for a truce seriously when _his_ wingman was glaring at them over his shoulder. Stupid Aiden. Stupid Gill. Stupid—whatever her name was.

Why did Lukas have to do this every year? Why did he have to insist on being sportsmanlike? Well, at least he wasn’t spitting in their faces by wishing them luck like he usually did.

With a determined scowl, Jesse said, “We’re going to crush you.”

Lukas gave a condescending chuckle. “I don’t know if you know this, but… we’re pretty good…” He paused and smiled cunningly. “Ohhh, wait. I get it. It’s like a joke, right?”

Jesse frowned and put on the toughest face he could muster. “No, I’m _serious_. We’re going to destroy you.”

“Ha! Y’know, you’re really funny. That’s awesome. Hey, good luck.”

Jesse glared, and Lukas’ cocky smirk wilted a bit.

_Yeah? Well, you can keep your luck ‘cause you’re gonna need it more than we will!_ Jesse taunted in his head, and as his attention was called away by the announcer, he could’ve slapped himself. _Man, I should’ve **said** that!_

“Ladies and gentlemen… Welcome to the 23rd annual EnderCon Building Competition. The winners of this year’s competition, as usual, will have their build featured at EnderCon. The winners will also meet, in person, Gabriel the Warrior!”

As soon as they were proclaimed, the words of the announcer were swallowed up in a roar of cheers by the hundred-plus people, Jesse’s team included. Determined even more to win the competition, Jesse resolved to focus on winning and to think no more of the Ocelots and their freacon beacon.

Of course, right then, like the recurrence of a nightmare or a bad headache, Jesse heard an enthusiastic chant of, “Ocelots!”

Frowning, he turned to see their rival team enacting some weird ritual.

“Ocelots!”

Maybe they were performing a human sacrifice.

“Ocelots!”

Maybe they would sacrifice Aiden! He could dream, couldn’t he?

“Whoa… Handshake?” Olivia marveled, and pointing at them, she turned to Jesse. “We don’t have a handshake.”

Like a handshake was _so_ impressive. They probably weren’t even going to sacrifice anybody.

Jesse laughed at himself.

If it made Olivia feel more secure, though, what was the harm? “We’ll just make one up.”

Jesse raised a fist in front of him and Olivia and Axel gave each other odd looks, but followed his lead.

“We’ll call it the… uuhhhhhh…” Jesse paused, and Olivia and Axel waited with uncertain expressions. Jesse thought about their build, and an idea came to him.

Jesse smiled. “The Creeper Clap!”

Jesse went in for a double high-five, which Axel enthusiastically missed, and Olivia halfheartedly met, then threw back his splayed out hands, and vocalized a mock explosion. Olivia and Axel were both left looking utterly confused.

“Get it? Like—‘cause—creepers explode?”

Olivia blinked, and a long moment later, Axel mused with mild interest, “Ohhhh. Heh.”

As quickly as he’d been proud of himself, Jesse hoped no one would remember this moment. “You know what? Handshakes are for dweebs, anyway.”

“Aaaand just like that, I’m nervous again,” said Olivia.

Jesse wilted slightly. Yeah, his handshake hadn’t panned out, but so what? He wasn’t about to let all this go to waste, and he _refused_ to resign himself to another year of idiots like Aiden calling them all losers. They _had_ to win. “Don’t talk like that! We can do this! Just stick to the plan and everything will be fine.”

Olivia looked somewhat comforted by this. “Okay.”

“Let’s do it,” Axel said.

It would have to do, because at that moment, the announcer lady spoke again. The competition was about to start. Jesse’s heart leaped and he took a deep breath.

We can do this.

“Three…”

Jesse patted Reuben on the head and got in position.

“Two…”

He looked to his right and gave Olivia a reassuring nod that she returned.

“One…”

To his left, Axel frowned in determination.

Jesse braced himself, as the last word before the horn entered his ears.

“BUILD!”

« … »

He determines the number of the stars and calls them each by name.

— Psalm 147:4

* * *

#### Author’s Notes

OoooOOOooH! _What’s_ gonna _happen_? :O I know, not the best ‘cliffhanger’ ever, but I had to end it somewhere. :P

LOT of author’s notes on this one, so yeah, don’t feel like you have to read them all. XD

\- Whatshername — At the time of writing this, I wasn’t sure of ‘her’ real name, so for Set in Stone at least, I had decided to just work around it and make it an ongoing joke. Even though I know her name now, I purposely neglected to say it, and for two very good reasons. One, I don’t want the whole beginning of the story to be name soup, and two, because it seemed to be an ongoing joke before ‘Order Up!’ came out amongst the fans who didn’t think to check the credits for her name. Like me, some people just didn’t know what it was, so they either made something up, or just followed along with what the rest of the fandom had accepted, which turned out to be her real name. So even after ‘Order Up!’ though, I decided to just roll with it. XP If you don’t know what it is, you can look it up, but I’m not gonna tell you. :P

\- Ahead of the Game — You might be wondering why the team in Booth 2 was already building despite the contest not being underway. I headcanon that people are allowed to build things before the competition if they either get permission, or it’s a tool to help them while they build but that requires setup. Eg: A cobblestone generator. :P (Eh… should I leave a note about cobblestone generators in the Glossary? :/)

\- Worry Wagon — I’d like to take a moment to call myself out on my own hypocrisy here. I tend to be very finicky about ‘wheels’ and stuff in general whenever I read Minecraft fanfiction (as I find it very hard to imagine in Minecraft) and try to hold myself to the same standards, but forgive me, this was just too funny. X)

\- Juuuust let him bury himself. — I just wanted to draw attention to this for a minute. I think this would be one of those sayings that has a slightly different meaning in Minecraft than it does in real life, but only slightly. In Minecraft, burying yourself is something that a lot of people do to get away from monsters if they were being dumb by wandering around at night, or staying out too late. So in this case, I think Jesse means for it to be like, “Yeah, eventually Aiden will realize that what he’s doing (or saying) is stupid, then dig a hole and hide in it.” It’s a way of saying, ‘this person should be ashamed of themselves.’ ;P

\- Gloria — Some of you may or may not know that this is the name of one of the people you run into in Redstonia, and I always thought she looked very much like the ‘Check-in Lady.’ XD (If anyone knows _her_ name, I’d love to hear it!) So I thought, why not? Without spoiling too much, this is I suppose, my way of connecting the world more, and giving more life to the people therein. These aren’t just NPCs you can talk to, they’re real people and they have people they care about as well. I’ll refrain from saying anything else lest I spoil the people reading this who don’t know/remember what happens. XP (Hi Mom!)

\- Who the Nether Cares? — I always loved this joke. X) However, it bugged me that even though they made this joke, they still used ‘Hell’ later. I’ve decided to change this, not just because I don’t like swearing in my writing unless it’s absolutely appropriate, but I figure since there actually is a Minecraft equivalent of Hell, and they _actually_ make this joke, them cursing in these spots doesn’t even make any sense. You might thinking, ‘Who the nether cares?’ And the answer is, I care, so get used to it. :]

As for Olivia here, you could debate that this is out of character, but since she is shown as being very blatantly opinionated about things that are important to her later, I think I’m justified enough in having her be this way. :P And I’ve always liked how she comes across as kinda motherly when she thinks one of the boys is being stupid, and I wish I could’ve seen more of that. :3

\- “It’s like everyone in town is here!” — Jesse says this in the game, but _in the game_ , there are only five booths. XD I don’t know about you, but I thought this was ridiculous! The ‘whole town’ (and I counted) is twenty-nine people? XD _Really_?! That’s not a town, that’s like, a small village. And honestly, it makes sense that a contest with a celebrity as the prize would actually have ‘everyone in town’ there. :P

\- Man, I should’ve said that! — This is a tribute to all the players out there who have run out of time before they can decide what to say. :]

#### Choice Notes

\- The Quincunx Stars — The four actual names that the game gives to choose from are, in my opinion, absolutely ridiculous. While I understand that it’s not important, has no long-term effects, and it _is_ Jesse and he’s really silly sometimes, I still wanted to come up with something better. However, I didn’t want Jesse’s other silly ideas to never get the light of day, so hence the funny discussion. :)

\- The Creeper Clap —Yeah, I just had to come up with my own dumb handshake. XP

\- Male Jesse — Oh boy! (Pun fully intended) Here I go. Don’t say I didn’t warn you. XP Now, note that a lot of these are very interpretable, as most things in MCSM are, but remember that I’m not trying to convince you to abandon your headcanon or anything, I’m just giving my thoughts. Also, spoiler warning on this one. ;)

The main thing that comes to mind is Petra’s implied crush on Jesse if he’s a he. Of course, Telltale tried to write the story where you don’t have to see it this way, but her motives don’t make the most sense if this _isn’t_ the case. For instance, if Petra likes him, it would make sense that she might channel that into trying to get him involved in her life by telling him about her jobs/trades, or even inviting him to come along with her, especially since she does this so suddenly. You could say that they just like each other as friends, but they don’t even really make that clear. (I believe I’ve stated before that Petra’s character is pretty half-baked to me, and her relationship with Jesse is even more so.) There are also a few times that Jesse will make some weird comment that makes me laugh if Jesse’s male, but if Jesse is female, they make me think, ‘Whhaa…? O.o’. One time is when Jesse says the “We’re super close now,” line, and two is a line that you can only get if you talk to the DJ at EnderCon and say the, ‘I’m looking for someone’ option. Jesse proceeds to say what sounds like a really bad pick-up line that is hilarious if Jesse is male, and if not… eh… All that aside, there are WAY too many fanfics for female Jessie! I’m sorry, but I _am_ biased and I’d like to see some _GOOD_ fanfiction with male Jesse, thank you very much! |:(

Pardon if this makes no sense to someone who isn’t me, but to me, it actually seems like Jesse being female degrades Lukas a little bit (a lot). Suddenly all of their interactions with each other make Lukas seem lame or weak, or even downright immature. The first time I actually saw that scene where Jesse and Lukas are fighting over the amulet, I saw it with Female Jessie and remembered thinking, ‘Dude, what’s your problem?’ but when I saw it again with Male Jesse, I loled. For some reason, two dudes fighting over something like two-year-olds fighting over a hotwheel is hilarious, but not so much with a guy and a lady. Whenever Jessie does something totally epic and awesome, I find myself asking, ‘Why can’t Lukas do this? He’s a guy, he should be able to do this!’ Normally the answer would be, ‘Because he’s not Jesse,’ :P but with Jesse being Jessie, it just doesn’t seem right to me. :/ Especially since there are two capable guys and a super headstrong girl on the team, it’s hard for me to even see Female Jessie as the strong, bold leader that my Jesse is. :3 Call me sexist if you like, but I’m a girl, so neh! ):P (By the way, I'm totally not, in case that wasn't obvious. :[ )

#### Glossary

Well, none of these are really necessary, but here I go…

\- Obsidian — Obsidian is one of the strongest blocks in Minecraft. It can’t be blown up by TNT, and even with the strongest pick, it takes ten times longer to mine than any other mineable block.

\- Rainbow Beacon — Both the beacon and stained glass are pretty straightforward (and also fairly well explained in the chapter itself), so I’m just gonna say that in Minecraft, you can color the light that comes from a beacon by putting stained glass over it. (Yea, not important.)

\- Daylight Sensor/Note Blocks — Two more redstone components, once again pretty straightforward. Daylight sensors check for daylight, and note blocks play notes when activated. (Did I mention, not important? XP)


	6. Chapter V – Down in Flames

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _Lukas wasn’t sure why he was even a little tense. Aiden had been worried about the competition, and excited at the prospect of meeting a member of the Order, but Lukas had just been enthralled at the idea of finally getting to face off against some **real** competition this year. Not that Jesse and his crew weren’t fun to beat with how hard they tried, but it would be nice to beat someone else for a change too. Or, so he thought._

#### Foreword

Dear Ao3, I'm happy to announce that we have reached the first milestone: This is the first chapter I posted coming back to this story after over two years.

First, if you happen to be one of the few people who actually kept up with me all that time, then I want to thank you, sincerely, for sticking with me all this time. It means more than you know, and without people like you, well, I would still be returning to this, but it may well have been with a heavy heart. I love writing, but returning to an old project you’ve been away from for so long you’ve started to forget what you loved about it, is a lot harder than you might think. It’s not all nostalgia and euphoria with a dash of love and a touch of fluffy memories. As many times as I have said it, I am _still_ dedicated to this project, as I devoted a huge portion of my teen years training and developing my skills as a writer through it. Although I only managed to polish and publish four chapters of it, Minecraft: Story Mode was all I could think about for several years. However, finding the motivation to work on it in spite of newer interests can be rough, and actually sitting down to work on it can be intimidating. All of that is to say that without people like you, I couldn’t keep this up, so thank you, from the bottom of my heart:

\- Midnight Star Hunter, for sticking with me and being a friend since she first started reading.

\- My wonderful brother, and sister (Night N. Gail) who have been a tremendous help through the whole process.

\- Anyone who’s a returning reader who’s still curious enough to stick with me now.

\- And finally, Northern Goshawk, for a kind word in a single review to give me motivation in a time when I really needed it. Your “Nudge” was more encouraging than you realize. XD

Thank you all, so so much. I couldn’t do this without you. :)

And with that being said, know that this next chapter wouldn’t have happened without you, so take it as token of my thanks, and for you and all of my _new_ dear readers, please enjoy. ^-^

* * *

Chapter V

#### Down in Flames

««««« … »»»»»

The horn sounded.

The building started.

The game was on.

While Aiden jumped into action, the other Ocelots on his tail, Lukas took a step back and a deep breath. They had made their plans, drawn their diagrams, and triple checked their inventories. They were readier than ever.

_It’s just another build,_ Lukas told himself, his focus set on drowning out the ruckus around him. _Another day, another year._ They had won every EnderCon Building Competition in the past nine years, and this year would be no different.

Lukas joined his friends on the framework they had already come close to completing, then assessed his first task.

_Main structure, then décor,_ he reminded himself, lest they run out of time with a non-functioning build.

The hardest part of competing was always the time limits. Lukas was used to it, but it seemed no matter how much he liked the plan before the competition, he always second-guessed it when the timer was ticking. However, when it felt like it was all down to the wire before he’d even placed his first block, he could only rely on his memory and start building.

_Just start building,_ he thought. So, he did.

It was a nerve-wracking feeling turned invigorating one, as slowly, his self-doubting mind gained a competitive spirit. He became sure of himself. Nine straight victories over nine years would do that to a person. _Some_ people—not to throw anyone on the minecart tracks—called him arrogant, but he was proud of his confidence. Just like his finest architectural works, and the skill behind them, it took years for him to build. However…

Lukas wasn’t sure why he was even a little tense. Aiden had been worried about the competition, and excited at the prospect of meeting a member of the Order, but Lukas had just been enthralled at the idea of finally getting to face off against some _real_ competition this year. Not that Jesse and his crew weren’t fun to beat with how hard they tried, but it would be nice to beat someone else for a change too. Or, so he thought. Lukas wasn’t in the habit of stressing himself out as Aiden so often did during these contests. He enjoyed the challenge.

Still, the competition this year was stiffer than even he expected, as there weren’t just a lot more competitors, but a _lot_ more cheaters too. He’d already caught two people trying to read off their plans. One had even tried to steal them. Maybe that’s what was getting to him. Not what he _could_ control, but what he _couldn’t_.

_Take it easy,_ Lukas told himself. _Do it right the first time, and you won’t have to do anything over. Just stay focused. Take your time. Relax._

« … »

_Go go go!_ Jesse ordered himself. _Don’t stop! Don’t think! Just go!_

They were going to do it. They were _finally_ going to do it! They were going to win, and Jesse would finally show Axel and Olivia, Lukas and the Ocelots, everyone who had ever called them losers, that he could be a hero too!

…Or, at least that they could build something cool. Not that he—really cared, or… whatever.

Jesse felt like he hadn’t stopped to breathe the entire time they had been building, which didn’t feel like long, but for not breathing? He _knew_ he had lost track of the time when he felt like it had only been half a minute _and_ a half of an eternity when the first five-minute alert went out.

“Five minutes in!” called a staff member.

Jesse looked for Olivia who was still intensely focused on the redstone, then he spotted Axel who was just finishing up the frame. Jesse redoubled his own efforts to finish his part.

He had started with the creeper décor in front, and after finishing that, he looked the whole thing over.

It was far from done, but Jesse already felt like he could relax a bit just looking at it, and for the first time in years, he felt truly confident in their ability to win.

He smiled.

_Looking pretty good—_

“Oh nooo!” came an overly emphatic moan from the Ocelots’ building area. Jesse looked to see Aiden feigning an intimidated look. “A fireworks dispenser?! I’m soooo scared!”

Aiden snickered smugly.

_Oh, figure that out all by yourself, did you?_

Jesse frowned, and couldn’t help but notice Lukas helpfully not doing a dang thing about it. Jesse was _so_ beyond caring at this point. Still, he had to remind himself not to retort.

_Just don’t even acknowledge him,_ he thought. _That’s what he wants._

« … »

_Aiden, what are you doing?_ Lukas thought, trying not to get distracted.

Aiden laughed and hopped back down to the redstone he’d been working on while Lukas wondered how his friend planned on winning by taking every opportunity to waste time.

_Whatever,_ he thought. _Aiden is Aiden. If he really wants this so badly, he won’t stall for long._

Lukas was good enough that Aiden could usually chill out a bit, but with how things were going, they would already be cutting it close.

Curious, Lukas took a quick look at Jesse’s build.

It was, in actuality, a fireworks dispenser, but this fireworks dispenser, well, it had a flare. Flare in the form of a giant, green, woolen creeper about a chunk tall. It was towering, eye catching, and all-too-fitting to the theme of colorful explosions. Granted, Lukas would have used colored concrete if it were his build, but still.

_Wow, Jesse,_ he thought. _Props to you._

Something of a proud smile crept onto his face. They must have _really_ wanted this. Although it wouldn’t even be necessary at this point, he would _almost_ feel tempted to go easy on him for once, if he wasn’t in it to win it for Aiden.

Wait… Aiden.

_Oh… That’s why Aiden is acting so weird. He must be really scared._

« … »

“Hey, you know creepers are afraid of ocelots, right?” Aiden shouted to them.

_Don’t pay any attention to him,_ Jesse told himself. Again.

“Hey, you know, scaredy cat,” Axel shouted in his monotone back at Aiden, “last I checked, you weren’t actually an ocelot.”

This seemed to frustrate Aiden, as he looked like he didn’t really know how to respond to that.

“Pft. Dude’s probably just scared that we’re actually gonna beat ‘im this year,” Axel mumbled to Jesse as he joined him up top.

Jesse smiled and reserved a laugh, then got back to loading up the dispenser.

The build was almost complete. Now all that was left to be done was the redstone, and their creeper friend might as well be made of diamond blocks.

« … »

_That should do it,_ Olivia thought, then called up to them, “Okay, throw the switch!”

Jesse nodded, but Axel excitedly beat him to it.

It didn’t work.

Axel looked like a sad puppy and flipped it a couple more times for good measure.

_Okay. No problem. I probably just have a repeater facing the wrong way._

She tried messing with the repeaters and called for them to try again. Still nothing. She bit her lip.

_Okay… maybe it’s being soft powered?_

She checked that everything was hard powered. Nothing. She checked that none of her redstone torches were burned out. Still nothing.

Her heart pounded.

She tried reverting it back to the way it was before. Now she wasn’t even getting a signal.

She racked her brain for any other possible problems it could be, or mistakes she could have made, and prayed to the Creator that it wasn’t some ‘quasi connectivity’ thing, or she’d be done for.

“Having some trouble?” Aiden taunted from his booth. “Aw, that’s a shame. At least you’ll know you didn’t lose because no one liked it!”

“Don’t listen to him, Olivia!” Jesse called down to her.

“Yeah! You got this!” Axel cheered.

Their encouragement fell on deaf ears. Her mind was a total blank. She couldn’t remember anything. She could feel hopelessness settling in. She wanted to give up.

“I…” she began, looking up to them. “I don’t know what’s wrong with it.”

Jesse and Axel gave each other a look. Jesse started to climb down, and with only a few jumps, he made his way to her. He put his hand on her shoulder, and as though he hadn’t a worry in the world, asked quietly with a smile, “Hey, Olivia, you all right?”

“I can’t remember any of the plans!” Olivia whisper-blasted, favoring a frustrated tone over what would naturally be a terrified one. “I messed this whole thing up.”

“Hey, it’s all right,” Jesse attempted to reassure her.

_If we lose… it’ll be all my fault,_ she thought.

“Your build is as broken as it is ugly!” Aiden shouted.

Olivia tried to ignore him, but her own subconscious made her feel worse than Aiden ever could.

_We’re gonna lose, and it’s going to be all my fault._

“We all have our off days, Olivia,” Jesse said, moving to stand between her and the Ocelot’s build. “But you can still do this!”

Then, she heard the same smug voice of Aiden shouting again, “Huh, that’s weird. Aren’t fireworks supposed to fly into the air and explode?”

“I wish _you’d_ fly into the air and explode,” said Axel.

“Oink oink oink!” Reuben contributed.

Aiden ignored him. “That _would_ be the only chance you’d have of winning, wouldn’t it?”

Finally Jesse snapped and yelled, “Aiden, shut up!”

“What’s that?” said Aiden. “Couldn’t hear you over the sound of total failure!”

Then Olivia snapped. “Jesse said ‘shut up!’ Do you need to hear it again?”

“I dunno.” Aiden said snidely. “Maybe.”

Then, the most beautiful sound in the entire world graced her ears. More angelic than quartz and more satisfying than slime, a sound she never thought she’d get the pleasure of hearing. Lukas, the leader of the Ocelots and their number one archrival blasting over the noise, “Aiden, shut up!”

That shut him up.

Aiden looked utterly defeated and sulked back to work on his build, while at the top of _their_ build, Axel burst into laughter, shouting, “Get rekt noob!”

Olivia couldn’t help but smile, and before her dismay could return, she noticed something, and her eyebrow quirked. There was a block blocking the circuit.

“Oh.”

She moved it.

“Try now!” Olivia called.

Axel flipped the lever one last time… and immediately behind him followed a whistle and a colorful explosion overhead.

Instantly, Olivia felt her whole body relax, not even realizing how tense she had been a moment ago. She let out a deep sigh and smiled.

Jesse grabbed her hands in his and bounced excitedly up and down like a little kid.

“You did it, Olivia!” he bubbled. “You did it!”

She _had_ done it, hadn’t she? It shouldn’t have been surprising, having done it several times before, but somehow, having ‘did it’ had never felt better.

Together, she and Jesse climbed up to the top with Axel, and gazed up to get a good look.

“It looks AWESOME,” said Axel. “And it’ll look even cooler tonight at EnderCon.”

Olivia resisted the urge to remind both of her friends that they hadn’t won _yet_ , and decided instead to spend this moment basking in her success. _Their_ success.

It was, after all, their best build to date.

« … »

“Good build, man!” Jesse heard, and for the first time, he looked away from the fireworks and down at the most amazing sight. A small crowd of spectators was starting to form, one of whom Jesse thought he recognized as the same guy who had called them losers earlier.

Jesse felt his smile getting bigger.

They had actually finished their build, and _nothing_ had gone wrong. Not _really_. They hadn’t been missing anything, or running out of time, and that all by itself was groundbreaking for them. Add to that _this_ , and Jesse could safely say that this was their best year yet.

_Holy crap, this is actually happening! We could actually win this thing!_

Just at the apex of his excitement, he heard a terrified squeal at the base of the build.

Jesse stiffened as his eyes darted down where he saw Reuben running around in panicked circles, his ender dragon costume on fire.

“Reuben!” he shouted. “Reuben’s on fire!”

Jesse’s heart was racing, and instantly nothing else mattered.

Reuben screeched and jetted off into the forest.

“Reuben!”

« … »

“Reuben, no! Come back!” Lukas heard Jesse shout.

Lukas ran out into the open after finishing his own build and was immediately absorbed in the commotion.

_What’s going on? What happened?!_

“It was Aiden!” Jesse’s friend Axel shouted. “That punk!”

He looked down to the base of the build where lava was quickly spreading, pooling closer and closer to it. At the lava’s source, Aiden stood faltering.

_Oh no. He didn’t…_

Lukas spotted Jesse’s pig running off into the forest while Jesse and his friends were already chasing after him. Lukas was startled stiff for a good ten seconds before he snapped himself out of it.

He ran over to Aiden and shouted, “Aiden, what did you do?!”

“I didn’t mean to—” Aiden stammered. “I just kicked the block and it was—there was lava and—”

“Never mind!” Lukas blasted. “Help me put this out!”

The rest of the Ocelots were too stupefied to help much, as even after Lukas told them to go grab some water, they stalled for a long moment, looking around frantically.

The fire was spreading fast.

Wood and wool. Of all things, wool!

_Come on, Jesse!_ You’re better than this! He wanted to say, but it wouldn’t have helped.

Lukas tried to salvage it by harvesting the lower blocks, but… it was no good. It had already spread too high, and there was no way they could get up in time to put out the rest. The build was done for.

“Oh whatever!” said Aiden, who seemed to have already come to the same conclusion with half the time and effort. “It was going to lose anyway. Seriously, what noobs build with wool?”

Lukas wanted to agree, but… hesitated. Something he was not used to doing.

“Jesse and his team were lame as always and the Obsidiots over there never stood a chance. We’re totally gonna win.”

He knew how badly Aiden wanted this, but…

His moral compass wasn’t pointing north on that one.

« … »

It is to one’s honor to avoid strife, but every fool is quick to quarrel.

— Proverbs 20:3

* * *

#### Author’s Notes

Well, there you have it. It actually came out better than I expected, to be honest. :]

The angle I took with this chapter was meant to contrast the way Jesse and Lukas think, showing their differences, but also their similarities. Their loyalties to their friends and how that reflects on their relationships, has always been in my mind’s eye part of what makes this story so great, and I wanted to highlight that.

Anyways, I hope you enjoyed! ^^ God bless y’all!

\- Obsidiots — I can’t take credit for this hilarious name. :P I got it from the Bad Lip Reading for Hunger Games. I don’t know if they were the first to come up with it, but it was too perfect for Minecraft, and it seemed like the kinda thing Aiden would come up with. XP

#### Choice Notes

\- Going After Reuben — As one of the first game altering choices, how could I not mention the ‘Stay with the build’ or ‘Go after Reuben’ choice? Well, I thought the results of going after Reuben were a lot more poignant to the story and character growth arcs, as the other option is just ‘right’ but doesn’t have any actual longstanding effects. (You know what I mean if you played this, and if not, I don’t want to spoil it. ;O) And as I know Jesse, he wouldn’t be thinking about the contest if one of his best friends lives were in danger.

#### Glossary

\- Wood and Wool — Once again, seems obvious enough, but I thought I should just point out that building with wood and wool in Minecraft (although widely accepted) is a no no if you want it to be very sturdy, or at least fireproof.

\- Quasi Connectivity — The bane of every redstone engineer. ):[


	7. Chapter VI – A Shout in the Dark

#### Foreword

Here we go! Update two of getting SiS off the ground again! :D Before we get started though, I have a few things to address. I’m gonna try to keep this brief, but as you know Bob, if you don’t care, you can feel free to skip to the story. ;)

First, a quickie. My website. (Yeah, that exists, btw. ;D See my profile) Both of my tumblrs are currently under construction, as you may have heard from Mr. Conestruction if you've been there (He likes to be called Coney) down at the bottom of the page. So if you keep up on there, you’re going to see a lot of things change over time. I’m also more than happy to receive feedback on it if you want to give it. :)

Second, let’s talk update schedule. I've mentioned before that the once a week updates are a temporary thing for y'all here on Ao3, and the downgrade will be coming up soon. :'( However, the goal right now is to start getting ahead on things as much as fruitlooping possible, and if I practice enough self-discipline that I’m able to finish the story long before I’ve finished posting, I will be UPGRADING to posting weekly. :D Yay! *Self-applauds* If you want to see that happen, and/or I MISS an update—! >:[ (D: *trembles*) I would implore you to PLEASE hound me! Nothing gets me excited to write like receiving personal messages from people who are just as excited as I am to see it completed. :) Also, this is as much a growing and learning experience for me as it is a fun project, and I want to get the most out of it that I can, so I greatly appreciate any feedback you’re willing to take from your valuable time to give me. ^-^

Third, let’s talk story quality. Because I have a bad habit of being a perfectionist (It’s been a struggle for me ever since I learned it was a bad thing. ;P) I’m having to learn to be okay with it not being _as_ awesome as I’d like it to be before posting, at the cost of it not having _as_ much time and effort put into it. (That’s efficiency! ;D) As such, it will likely be a _bit_ first-drafty, but I will slowly be going over things and fixing problems as I see them, so feel free to point out any problems you see! :) I do hope to go over these early chapters in the future to fix them up a bit more than small changes. Taking out padding and stuff, make things more interesting, retroactively adding foreshadowing, that kind of thing, but that won’t be for a while if it happens at all. XD

Fourth and final WAS about starting to post for you guys, here on Ao3! ;D Yeah, we've come that far already!

Well, that’s about it for now! Wow, I’m bad at keeping things brief. Um… I guess…

Enjoy! ^^

Chapter VI

#### A Shout in the Dark

««««« … »»»»»

_“It’s chasing me! It’s chasing me!”_ Reuben squealed, galloping as fast as he could to get away from it. But the orange monster roared furiously, threatening to consume him whole with its many scalding tongues.

_“Don’t eat me!”_

Reuben bucked and bucked to get it off, but nothing worked.

“Reuben!” he heard someone call out to him.

 _“Jesse!”_ he squeaked.

It was Jesse! Jesse was close!

Reuben tried to run to Jesse, but his voice only got quieter and quieter until the all he could hear were the enraged sounds of the monster behind him. Reuben already couldn’t see real well with this costume on his head, but in his flurry to get away, he couldn’t even tell what was a tree and what was a cliff.

By the time he finally managed to escape, he had no idea where he was. Scared for his life, he continued to run as fast as his little pink legs could carry him.

« … »

Axel had just barely caught it out of the corner of his eye. Aiden, the sniveling little sore loser, was eying a carefully positioned lava deposit, and with a swift kick, he broke one of the blocks keeping it contained. Axel only had time to point him out before everything was suddenly spinning out of control. Reuben’s costume caught fire, he took off into the forest, and Jesse wasted no time before he dove off of their build and landed in a somersault, chasing after him.

“C’mon Axel,” Olivia shouted, “Jesse needs our help!”

Axel looked down at the lava slowly creeping toward their creeper, almost there.

“But our build is about to go up in flames!”

Olivia frowned. “Fine! Stay then!”

She didn’t wait another second before she too leaped off their build and made a break for the trees. Axel hesitated. He couldn’t stay, though. He’d never forgive himself—if _they_ ever forgave him.

“Awwww…” he moaned, swallowing defeat, and jumped after her.

 _So long, firework creeper machine,_ he thought, wishing he could a least take a second to give it a proper sendoff at least. _You were truly the most awesome thing we ever built together._

As soon as Olivia saw him on her tail, she shouted ahead, “We’re right behind you, Jesse!”

The three of them ran through the forest, with Axel a few paces behind them the whole time. He lost track of how far they’d gone, too preoccupied with just keeping up with them. With Reuben running ahead, there was no convincing Jesse to slow down. Though he was much bigger than either Jesse or Olivia, Axel hated running almost as much as he hated spiders, and he’d never been very good at it. Finally Jesse stopped and Axel caught up to them.

“I don’t see him anywhere,” said Jesse, clearly worried. “Reuben?!”

Olivia looked up at the sky, and so did Axel. The stars were just barely visible now, and the clear skies were growing darker.

“The sun’s going down,” she said, and Jesse turned around to look at her. “We’ve gotta find him, _fast_.”

They sure did. One problem though, Axel pointed out, “He could’ve gone anywhere, and this part of the woods is _huge_.”

Jesse looked at both of them in turn. “We stand a better chance of finding him if we split up.”

And as quickly as their courageous leader spoke, the plan was set.

“If either of you get lost,” Olivia added, “just use the lights from EnderCon to make your way back to town. Climb a tree if you need to. Got it?”

“Got it,” Axel agreed, and without question they fanned out in search of their little buddy.

It wasn’t long before the shouts of his friends faded as they got farther away. Eventually he couldn’t hear them at all.

Axel had never been out in the unlit forest all by himself this late before. He wasn’t scared. Axel liked to think of himself as a griefer of sorts, and above all, griefers were the most fearless people alive. Or not alive. If they got _too_ fearless.

That said, Axel was definitely not _too_ fearless. While he wasn’t scared, he’d be lying if he said he wasn’t a little uneasy. But he wasn’t scared at all.

In fact, he was _so_ not scared that had to remind himself to focus on the task at hand instead of other things. For some reason, his mind kept drifting back to the competition. It had all happened so fast that his brain was still struggling to process everything that had happened.

Was it bad that even now, he was still thinking about how all their hard work in the competition had been for nothing? Was it even worse that, assuming Reuben _was_ all right, a part of him was hoping that the costume he’d spent ages on wasn’t totally totaled? Was it terrible that part of him still wished he had stayed behind? Maybe then, they might have finally won something. For _once_.

 _Ugh,_ he moaned internally. _Can this night get **any** worse?_

Axel shook his head and realized he’d been stalling, which made him feel even worse.

“Reuben!” he shouted for the umpteenth time.

Axel could have sworn he heard a faint rattling and stopped dead in his tracks.

 _Spiders…_ he thought, _I **hate** spiders…_

Spiders were fast, and they could climb. Axel was not fast, and he could not climb. Also, the only way to get away from them was to hide in a one-block-wide space, which they couldn’t fit through. The problem was, Axel couldn’t fit through those either.

If he had to run _and_ fight a spider in one night, he was gonna have to give that slime-for-brains Aiden a present in the form of a chicken bomb in his house.

It… wasn’t dark enough for monsters to spawn yet, right?

“Reuben?” he called out, quieter this time, and at that very moment, a patch of grass near him rustled. Axel turned on it and held his fists out in front of him. He never wished more that he’d gotten in the habit of carrying a sword with him like Jesse. After a moment, the grass shook again, and he couldn’t tell if he should check it out, or run away from it.

Axel groaned, knowing what he had to do. It’s why he was out here to begin with, right?

He swallowed, silently reminding himself of how not-scared he was.

_Please don’t be a spider, please…_

“Reuben?” he whispered, “Is that you, buddy?”

A shadowed figure jumped out of the grass and screeched in his face.

“GAH!” he screamed.

Axel tripped and fell on his back. He scooted back on impulse and quickly pushed himself up enough to see, ready to fight the mon—

Chicken.

It was a chicken. Not a spider. Not Reuben. A chicken.

The chicken hopped onto his chest and stared down at him. He could see the evil pleasure in its black, soulless, beady little eyes.

Axel frowned.

“Stupid chicken!” he shouted, shoving the thing off as he got to his feet. It clucked a maniacal chuckle at him as it ran away. The little coward.

“Yeah, you better run!” He kicked some dirt in its direction. “Or I’ll be eating you for breakfast! Ya little punk!”

After the chicken disappeared from sight, Axel quickly regretted shouting when he heard something else. For _sure_ this time. The clear, distinct sound of a distant zombie groan.

There was no mistaking it, and it was _definitely_ dark enough for monsters to spawn now. Axel had to admit, he was getting slightly less not-scared. It was about time he called it quits, he decided—before a _real_ creeper could show up to explode him into the air. How ironic would _that_ be?

Axel just hoped that Olivia or Jesse had found the poor little guy.

« … »

Once Axel had made his way back to town, he was surprised to find out that the judging for the competition hadn’t even started yet. He’d gone to see if the Ocelots had won again with their freacon beacon, but the setup crew were _apparently_ as surprised as he was that the winning build wasn’t there yet, and they seemed more than a little impatient. They’d allegedly been waiting for a whole half hour since they were supposed to get the materials and plans, and had only minutes ago received word that the results had been delayed due to ‘complications’. They were happy to angrily relay all this to him in rant form.

Excited and curious about the news, Axel rushed back to the competition grounds. There, he found things not at all like he expected.

He expected maybe for there to be a fire team for the lava, or maybe an argument with staff about something or another. Maybe a riot about Gabriel or something? But none of those things were the case.

When he arrived, the entire crowd of a hundred or so people was passive, but on edge. There was murmuring and whispering of the dubious and worried variety coming from the impatient, the restless, and the nervous. The suspense was clearly killing everyone.

Axel didn’t have the chance to wonder for long, as just before he could find someone somewhat official looking to ask about it, he spotted Olivia wandering the crowd.

 _Apparently_ she had had the same idea.

“Hey, Olivia,” Axel whisper-shouted, for some reason feeling the need to stay quiet.

Olivia turned and noticed him as he quickly made his way over to her.

“Axel! Have you seen Jesse?”

“No,” he replied. “What’s going on here?” Axel asked, beyond confused at this point, and dying of curiosity.

Olivia looked around at the crowd and kept her own voice low. “Oh yeah, I’ve been asking around, and _apparently_ , we weren’t the only ones who were sabotaged.”

“What?” For some reason, Axel didn’t even think that could happen. A part of him, he supposed, either thought that the Ocelots were the only players dirty enough to pull a stunt like that, or that _their_ team was the only one worth sabotaging. It kinda made him feel less special, actually, but it was still shocking.

“Yeah, they’ve been stuck here for a while trying to—”

“All right, everyone!” a loud voice called out of nowhere.

Immediately, the hushed muttering went _dead_ silent, and all eyes turned to the central platform where a lady stood, slightly timid, paper in hand.

“I apologize for the long delay. We know how much time and effort has been put into each and every build, and the results are finally in. Uh, but first,” she said, a nervous tone to her voice, “the producer of the project has something to say about the, um, the recent events, uh—”

The lady stepped down from the platform, and in her place, a rather irritable man stepped up. The crowd didn’t applaud.

The man spoke slowly, clearly, and calmly, but his tone was almost scary.

“Due to a lot of finger-pointing and tattletaling, we have been forced to disqualify _FOURTEEN_ teams this year,” said the producer, a look of frustration showing clearly on his face, although if his tone was any indication, he was guarding a more disdainful one. “Which, may I add for some perspective, is more teams than we have ever even _had_ in a _single year_ , and just shy of a quarter of the total teams competing _this_ year.”

 _Man_. Axel didn’t even _do_ anything and he felt embarrassed.

“That being said,” he continued, “I would like to thank those few of you who were respectful and honest in coming forward with information, and apologize in advance to those teams who may be _wrongly_ disqualified. And to those of you who are truly guilty…”—the man paused for a tense few seconds—“I hope you’re happy.”

He took a breath and finally finished. “I will now hand the announcing back to Clara. Thank you.”

“Holy _cow_ ,” Olivia muttered next to him. Axel on the other hand was speechless, and only nodded in response.

Clara, he guessed, made her way back up to the small stage set up in the center of the building grounds, and pulled up her paper. She was clearly trying—and failing—to conceal her apprehension at the task of spelling out everyone’s doom for them.

“Um, the following teams have been disqualified for griefing, or claims of griefing based on plausible cause, and ‘eyewitnesses’.” She didn’t seem too certain about that last part. She cleared her throat, seeming to be stalling an extra second rather than making it easier to talk. “The Nether Knights…”

_Man, good thing we didn’t go with The Nether Maniacs…_

“The Beaconators…”

_Pft. I bet they don’t even have a freacon beacon._

“The Ocelots…”

Axel blinked, and there was a bit of surprised disbelief at that one among the crowd as well.

He looked over at the Ocelot’s build just in time to see Aiden’s face melt into shock while Lukas stood there with his arms crossed, glaring at the floor. All the while, Clara just kept reading.

“I guess the ‘nine-year winners’ were sore losers,” scoffed someone next to him.

Axel watched Lukas as he refused to look up, his expression one of seething shame. Olivia voiced his thoughts.

“Wow,” she said. “I’ve never seen him look so furious.”

“Pft. Serves them right,” Axel said, glowering in their direction. “Dirty rotten cheaters.”

Olivia murmured, seeming uncertain, “Yeah…”

Axel raised his brow.

_I mean… right?_

As soon as Clara finished, the crowd instantly erupted with shouts ranging from confused and distraught, to passionately enraged. From, “But we didn’t do anything!” to, “Why are _we_ being disqualified?!” to, “This is obtuse!”

_Whaaaat?_

Axel couldn’t help but notice a distinctive voice shouting, “It’s not _my_ fault their build was made completely of flammable blocks!”

With everyone trying to claim everyone was cheating, and with Aiden being the piece of rotten flesh he was, Axel was amazed their team wasn’t on that list. However, Axel got the feeling that if it had been more than a pile of charcoal and cobble, they would have been.

It took a whole minute for them to get everyone to calm down again, long enough for her to _actually_ finish. Lukas, he noticed, was completely silent the whole time. He didn’t seem to be fighting at all, which was _somewhat_ honorable?

_I guess…_

“And now, the following are teams who have been disqualified through no fault of their own as victims of the griefings…”

She started to list them, but Axel wasn’t paying attention.

Lukas didn’t make a whole lot of sense. He was clearly the best builder on their team… and though Axel would never say this, if he was honest with _himself_ , Lukas wasn’t an awful person either. He was an annoying, stuck up know-it-all who clearly cared too much about his hair, but it’s not like he was a stupid idiot like Aiden. So why did he work with those jerks anyway, when all they did was make it harder to win? He couldn’t seriously be their friends _outside_ of competing.

Ehh, he was probably giving him too much credit.

From Axel’s experience, you could tell a lot about a person by the people they hung out with. Their group was funny, smart, charming, and awesome, because Axel was funny, Olivia was smart, Reuben was charming, and Jesse was awesome. The Ocelots were dumb, stupid, jerky, and lame, because Gill was dumb, whats-her-face was stupid, Aiden was jerky, and Lukas was lame.

He’d started analyzing people again. It was a bad habit. Understanding people meant either you didn’t have an excuse to dislike them, or worse… you had to _sympathize_ with them.

As it was, he was content to keep hating the Ocelots as a whole.

“And finally,” Clara finished, “The Quincunx Stars. We are, again, truly sorry for the inconvenience. The winner of this year’s competition will be announced shortly. Thank you all for participating, and we hope you enjoy the rest of EnderCon.”

Clara finally left the makeshift stage, and the crowd began to erupt in protest again.

“Man, I wish Jesse was here for all that,” Axel muttered.

“I wish Jesse was here _period_.” Olivia sighed. “Ohh… I just hope he’s okay…”

“Yeah,” said Axel. “You and me both.”

« … »

“Reuuuben!” Jesse shouted.

_Fire. Why did it have to be fire?_

“Reuben? Where are ya, buddy?”

_Reuben **hates** fire!_

Jesse had been looking for what felt like hours. He searched until all that was left was moonlight. And moonlight meant monsters. He was soaking wet from wading through a small river, tired of walking, and all alone in the middle of the night, but he couldn’t stop looking now.

“Come here boy!”

All that he got in response was a few other animals who were clearly disturbed by Jesse as they scurried away. Fine by him. That only meant he’d really know Reuben when he found him. Reuben would _never_ run away from him.

You know… unless he was on fire.

Jesse noticed what looked like pig tracks on the ground. There was no way Reuben could have made all these on his own, but he decided to check it out anyway. Sure enough, they led straight to a herd of pigs much dumber looking than his best friend.

“Reuben? Are you in there?”

Once he got close, the pigs got excited and started squealing loudly. They seemed attracted to him for some reason, as they crowded around and started sniffing him. Did he really smell that much like a pig?

“No, not you gu—pigs! Go away! Shoo!”

He brushed them off and walked away. “Stupid pigs.”

But then, he was reminded of something.

 _Oh,_ he thought with a smile. _I have carrots!_

Pigs loved carrots—which explained _those_ pigs—and Reuben loved them more than anything.

Just as he pulled one out, Jesse noticed a chicken dive bomb into a bush and, curious, Jesse walked up to it. As soon as he approached, the chicken jumped out and clucked in his face.

Jesse raised an eyebrow. The chicken seemed almost… disappointed as it trotted away.

He just moved on.

“Reuben, I’ve got something for ya!”

Jesse noticed a little well in the ground and thought, surely, he wouldn’t have… but he was getting desperate.

“Reuben?” his voice echoed back to him.

Of course, nothing. He felt kind of silly after just looking down a well for a pig, but it wasn’t impossible. If Reuben had thought to put out the fire, then… well, you never know.

Jesse sighed. He just wished there was _some_ sign of…

He saw smoke.

“Reuben?” he gasped out, putting the carrot back in his pocket. Just above a small rock formation, he spotted it, and found himself suddenly terrified as he rushed around it to the source. There, he found a tree that was floating midair, ablaze with fire. The tree was almost completely gone by now, and wasn’t connected to any other trees, so it wouldn’t spread.

“He must have run by here.”

Jesse looked around, and nearby, he saw a small light source on the ground. He got closer to see what it was, and when he saw, his breath caught in his throat.

It was the Ender Dragon costume, smoldering in a little heap on the grass, but there was no Reuben porkchop.

_Oh, thank the Creator!_

This meant he was still alive!

He breathed a sigh of relief, and took a moment to relax as he stamped out the glowing embers.

Then Jesse took a deep breath and belted out one last time, “REEEUUUUBEEEEN!”

In response, he heard a distant but very clear, familiar, ‘Oink!’

In an instant, all of his energy came back, and Jesse sprinted through the dark.

“Reuben!” he called again, and heard the same little oink.

Finally, he followed it to a small, dark cave. He swallowed.

_Okay… I got this._

Jesse took one slow step inside. Instantly his vision was filled with a flurry of black and his hearing with the loud screeching of a million bats as the creatures came pouring out of the cave. Jesse screamed and waved his arms frantically over his head to get them away.

_Agh, bats! Horrible things!_

Heart still racing, Jesse slowly crept inside the cave again, and that’s when he spotted it. A little pink tail sticking out of a little hole in the wall. Just in case his mind was playing tricks on him, Jesse pulled out his sword and poked with the handle. The pig wiggled and scooched forward, squeeing anxiously.

Jesse smiled brightly and whisper shouted, “Reuben!”

Reuben managed to turn around and bounced in his hole.

“Oiii!” Reuben squeaked in relief.

Jesse knelt by the hole. “Oh, I’m so happy to see you! Let’s get out of here, Reuben.”

Reuben shook his head and spun around in his hole, climbing deeper inside.

‘No, Jesse!’ he imagined him saying. ‘It’s too dangerous out there! Climb in this little hole with me!’

As much as Jesse would have liked to give Reuben a pep talk right now, they didn’t have time. They were lucky to have gotten _this_ far without encountering some monsters. So, he’d have to settle for the next best thing. Bribery.

“Hey, Reuben,” Jesse said in a quiet but inviting voice, “I got a carrot for you.”

Jesse set the carrot down and waited a few seconds, then out popped a little pink pig snout.

“Yeah, come on, it’s okay,” Jesse urged, pulling the carrot back slightly. Reuben was the smartest pig in the world, but he was still a pig.

Reuben climbed out and devoured the carrot, then Jesse picked him up.

“Good boy, Reuben!”

Reuben oinked happily and nuzzled his face with his snout.

Jesse set him down. Reuben looked guilty, probably thinking something along the lines of, ‘I’m sorry I ran away. It’s just that… I’m a pig.’

“Aww, it’s okay, Reuben,” he said, and joked, “Man, things really got really heated back there, didn’t they?”

Reuben raised an eyebrow.

“Sorry,” Jesse chuckled. “Bad joke.”

Jesse started walking back and motioned for Reuben to follow.

“Now come on. We’ve gotta hurry back to town if we don’t want to run into…”

Jesse heard a low groan, and for a second he stopped breathing. He and Reuben went quiet.

He spoke too soon.

Jesse turned back around and right out of the deepest part of the cave, where the moonlight couldn’t reach, not one, not two, but three zombies crawled out of the darkness.

Reuben squealed in terror.

“Reuben, run!”

The two of them did. They ran until Jesse thought they were out of the zombies’ range, and Jesse crouched behind a rock.

Jesse gasped for air.

“Whew, I think... I think we’re good.”

But not two seconds after, he heard a hiss from behind him, and spun around to see a green figure looming over him.

Jesse yelped.

He wasn’t sure what in the Overworld came over him, but he had the sudden impulse to shove the thing backwards. So he did—as hard as he freaking could, then he grabbed Reuben and vaulted over the rock. One explosion later, and their cover was almost completely gone, but the two of them were completely unharmed.

If he had acted a moment later, they would have _both_ been porkchops.

He put Reuben down and gasped for air again. “That was close—but I think—I think we’re good now…”

Jesse really needed to stop talking, because just as he finished talking, an arrow pegged one of the only remaining stone blocks of their cover, _right_ by his ear.

“Ah!”

Jesse looked up to see a skeleton looming over him, bow at the ready, aimed right at him.

“RUN!” Jesse shouted, and just narrowly missed another arrow as he scrambled to his feet.

The two of them kept running, Jesse periodically looking back. That turned out to be a mistake, because he ended up running face-first into a stone wall.

He turned around and looked for a new route, but now every path was blocked by monsters. They were surrounded.

This was _not_ good.

« … »

Let each of you look out not only for his own interests, but also for the interests of others.

—Philippians 2:4

* * *

#### Author’s Notes

Wow, that sure was a bigger deal than it was in the game. XD And a lot longer than I wanted it to be. :/

Side note: That part where Axel describes himself as ‘a griefer of sorts’… I could have SWORN I’d worked something like that in elsewhere, but for the life of me, I can’t find it anywhere. D: So if any of y’all remember anything like that somewhere, please tell me. XD Anyway, it was an important detail, so better to have it in their twice than not at all.

#### Choice Notes

Choice notes… note:  
None of my choice notes will contain spoilers for the rewrite itself, but they _may_ contain spoilers for the game’s canon. I will try as much as possible to keep them relatively relevant to the chapters they’re in, but I may want to reference decisions for later, so if you’re worried, don’t read them. However, I will _always_ keep the author’s notes and glossary clear of spoilers, so you can read those worry free. :)

\- Axel — So here Axel acts a _little_ more reluctant about leaving the build than he did in the canon. This is to better foreshadow his character growth arc him being ‘the selfish one’. They show this a little bit later when Axel refuses to give up the potion, but that was just stupid, and you can _bet_ I’m not going to degrade his character with _that_ nonsense. - .- Here though, the stakes aren’t so high that even hesitating makes him look like an awful human being, and is sympathetic enough that, while we can all agree the life of a pet is _way _more valuable than winning a contest, we all get it. It’s _hard_ to let go of everything you’ve worked hard for, even when it’s the obvious choice.__

____

#### Glossary

____

\- Chicken Bomb — In Minecraft, because it’s a game, the laws of reality can be persuaded to break on occasion, which someone used to figure out a way to make what’s called a ‘chicken bomb’. In the game, the way it works is spawning a bunch of chickens on the same block with the walls closed off, and then breaking it, so the bounding boxes of the chickens is updated, sending them flying everywhere. Not unlike an actual bomb. For this world, imagine sticking a bunch of chickens in a box in a way they just barely fit, and setting it up right outside someone’s door so when they open it, the chickens leap at the ability to move and go in the only direction they can: IN. Now their house is flooded with chickens, and they get an unruly surprise. :P

\- Reuben Porkchop — When an animal in Minecraft dies, (or any mob for that matter) their body poofs into smoke and they drop an item or items. Pigs drop porkchops. Yum! :D


	8. Chapter VII – Running Wild

#### Foreword

_Note: I didn't edit this one much, so realize this AN is all from over a month ago. XD_

And that’s the third deadline kept! *stamps something triumphantly* Week four is here and gone, and I’m ready for week six! Let’s do this!

Oy, I wanted to finish this one last week, (at the original time of posting ;P) but I just got around to finishing it a few days ago because I had stupid writers block. >:/ I sat down to finish this thing _every day_ and it _vehemently_ refused to be finished! :[ ( _I had writer's block._ :P)

No excuses here! Just sharing the story. :) (I’m telling you this now so I can be more accountable in the future. ;] ) My ultimate goal here is to get very disciplined about getting stuff done, and I figure it might help if I put it all out in words.

So here I am! Streak of three, week four, last Friday of May! I hope you enjoy, and I’ll see you in a couple weeks! :D (On Ao3, _one_ week! ;D)

God bless!  
—Lucinda Cottontale

* * *

Chapter VII

#### Running Wild

««««« … »»»»»

Petra braced for impact, hurling herself through the portal and landing in a roll. As she passed into the Overworld, the burning atmosphere all around her instantly changed. She took a deep breath, never before being so grateful for the cold night air.

 _Wow, Petra,_ she complimented herself. _That was cool._

Cool, but hardly a joyride.

After just getting chased by an angry fleet of zombie pigmen and two ghasts—though she might have imagined the ghasts—she wasn’t sure all this was worth it for just a diamond. She’d almost _died_ for Steve’s sake. With how useless these Wither skulls were, she wondered for the first time why Ivor would even _want_ such a thing.

Not like it mattered. It wasn’t any of her business. Some people liked weird things, and they paid what they paid.

After taking a minute to let her heart slow down, she started walking when she tripped and met the stone floor with a thud. She dropped her pickaxe in the process, which clattered away and fell off the edge of the small cliff to her cave.

 _Okay,_ she thought. _That was **less** cool._

She sighed, pushed herself up, and climbed down to get it. Once she reached down to pick it up, she heard a terrified scream.

Petra froze.

She’d know that girly scream anywhere.

Without a second thought, she had snatched up her pickaxe and flew off into the night.

« … »

A spider made a disgusting rasping noise before it leaped into action, and Jesse screamed as he was knocked to ground. He kicked at the ground to get away, however, the spider was _fast_ and jumped him again. He kicked it off, but he only had a moment to think before it would strike again. Turned out, that was all he needed.

 _My sword!_ he remembered, not a moment too soon. The monster leaped at the first chance to attack again, but instead of biting into him, it ended up impaling itself on Jesse’s wooden sword.

That was TOO close… and WAY cooler than he intended it to be.

The spider vanished into a small plume of smoke, and behind it left two pieces of string. In spite of himself, Jesse smiled and yoinked it off the ground.

“I got it! I actually got it! Reuben, did you see that?!”

The low growls called his attention back, a not so friendly reminder that he wasn’t out of the woods yet.

Thank the Creator the skeleton from before had lost interest, and now all that was left was the horde of zombies. Still, that horde was growing in size with every minute they were out here.

It was a pretty open area for a natural cage, but that advantage dwindled the longer he stalled.

As they advanced, Jesse steeled his nerves and scowled in determination. Reuben gave a fearful squeal. Jesse glanced back at him.

“Stay behind me, Reuben. I’ve got you.”

Jesse didn’t want to give himself more time to think about what he was charging into, should he think twice and regret not making the decision. So before he could think, he just charged.

He slashed at the closest zombie, once, twice, three times until it went down. After it fell and poofed into smoke like the spider, three more emerged from behind it. Well, nice thing about zombies was they were much slower than spiders or skeletons.

As he hacked away at them, Jesse actually found himself enjoying it… as much as one could enjoy a life or death situation. The zombies weren’t too hard to fight, and he had to admit, he felt kinda cool doing it.

Three more dead zombies later, Jesse was forced to remember his terror when a final blow to one snapped his weapon in half.

Jesse gasped. “Stupid wooden swords!”

Now the tables had turned on him, and the zombies held the advantage.

« … »

Petra instinctively skidded to a stop behind cover, then peeked out to see what was going on.

She looked down from the edge of the small cliff and saw Jesse. He stood, battle ready, the object of attention to a mob of zombies that crept in all around him. He only had a wooden sword, but he looked as confident as someone else more experienced might look with a higher tier weapon wearing a full set of armor. For some reason, she expected to find him shivering in a corner somewhere, or stuck in a tree. Her imagination had been wrong. Jesse was not only holding his own, but he looked… _awesome_.

Petra smiled, suddenly not as worried, and watched as Farmer Boy took to the battlefield. It wasn’t quite with the grace and poise of a trained warrior—more that of a clumsy skeleton—but he seemed to be handling it just—

Jesse’s sword broke, and for the first time, he showed his true colors of ‘wet behind the ears noob’ as he gasped in fear.

Petra almost ran in, but… she stopped.

She’d never seen Jesse fight before. It was just a few zombies, and…

She was… curious…

« … »

Jesse stood between the army of undead monsters, and his best friend, ready to defend, but with nothing to defend with.

They were cornered again.

“Oink?” Reuben asked in desperation.

“I know it’s bad, I’ll think of something.” He said this as much to assure himself as his friend. Truthfully, things looked pretty hopeless, but… there had to be a way.

Reuben yipped, and Jesse heard a loud growl—from directly _behind_ him.

He spun around and there it was, a zombie, right there, and it had Reuben in its’ sight. It must have snuck up behind him when he wasn’t looking.

“Hey! Get away from him!” Jesse blasted, any fear he felt a moment ago vaporizing in an instant.

It drew back its arm and thrust it forward to strike, but Jesse was already upon it. He punched the thing so hard that it looked stunned for a minute, and Jesse didn’t wait for it to regain its’ balance before he punched it again, even harder. It disappeared with that second punch.

“Are you okay?” he asked.

Reuben whined and shied back behind him, trembling, clearly shaken up, but clearly okay.

Jesse sighed, and looked again to the horde before them. They were still surrounded.

Reuben grunted nervously. He was right. There were just too many of them. The horde of zombies was slowly encroaching in on them, like a visible plague. He had to think fast.

He had an idea… but he didn’t like it.

Zombies were completely one-track-minded. Once one had a target, it didn’t stop chasing that target until one of them was dead… or more dead, in the zombie’s case. Jesse didn’t know a lot about monsters, but this was common knowledge, and right now, they were focused on him. That meant if Reuben could make it past them, he would be safe. They were closer to town now, he could make it back, and—if he was lucky—Reuben might find someone to come help him… before he was eaten by zombies.

It was a long shot, but if it didn’t work… at least Reuben would be safe.

Not taking his eyes off the zombies, Jesse knelt down on the ground beside Reuben and held him close as reassurance for both of them.

“You’re going to have to make a run for it, okay?”

Reuben started shaking, squealing in protest, and Jesse finally met his terrified eyes.

“I’ll meet you back in town, I promise!”

Jesse only hoped he could fulfill what he was promising. The odds weren’t very promising themselves.

He released Reuben reluctantly and pointed towards the only open area, and the only escape. “Get outta here! NOW!”

Reuben cried out and scampered off in a panic, just barely making it out of sight.

As if on cue, right when Reuben disappeared, two skeletons manifested from seemingly nowhere and prepared to join the already incredibly unfair fight.

 _Okay… this is officially getting cr—_

As if the darkness couldn’t get any scarier, Jesse heard a higher pitched gargled growl. It sounded like zombie, but much more deliberate. Out of nowhere, a zombie roughly the size of a chicken flew screeching out of the cave behind it and toward Jesse as his eyes flew open. He didn’t even have time to gasp before the creature barreled into his stomach, knocking him onto his back. Jesse tried his best to keep it away as it mercilessly clawed at his face. After it bit onto his arm, Jesse yelped in pain and somehow managed to kick it off of him. Jesse scooted back desperately as it once again jumped back up to its feet and shot off again, landing itself back on his chest.

What he wouldn’t give for a shovel right now.

« … »

Petra watched, tense with anticipation.

As Jesse stalled, Petra found herself enthralled by his heroics and amazed at his bravery despite his apparent lack of actual experience. He didn’t know how to fight, but he knew how to use a sword.

He was a natural, there was no denying that. She didn’t see the zombie coming from behind him, but before it had a chance to attack, Jesse took the thing out with his bare hands. He was lacking in skill, but his instinct and reaction speed made up for it.

There was even a time when he nailed one of the suckers in the face with a flying kick! But… she couldn’t tell if she imagined that.

She was probably imagining it.

The Nether did strange things to the mind. Still…

 _Wow…_

She was enraptured. She couldn’t take her eyes off him.

Petra imagined the devilish outcry of a chicken jockey ripping through the—wait, she didn’t imagine that!

Not a second later, the little monster tore out into the open and catapulted itself into Jesse.

In a heartbeat, Petra came back to herself. She jolted, shaking her head.

 _What am I doing?!_

« … »

Jesse squeezed his eyes closed for fear that the little maniac would pull them out when suddenly he heard a battle cry.

He opened his eyes again on instinct, and like an angel, his saving grace seemed to descend from above, just in time to whack the little tiny little zombie off of him. The attacker slammed it to the ground, yanked the weaponized pickaxe out, and finished it off with three more blows to the chest.

Without skipping a beat, his heroine dashed out into the fray and pulled off one of the most insane stunts he’d ever seen. She grabbed a zombie— _grabbed_ a zombie, and used it the way one might use a shield. Jesse wasn’t sure what she was doing until the zombie was pegged in the head with an arrow.

She let the zombie go, and instead of turning on her, it immediately went after the skeleton, and the two monsters started fighting.

 _I’ve never seen two monsters fight each other…_ he thought, as she repeated the same trick with two skeletons.

With the two skeletons now targeting each other, the arrows started flying, and suddenly, _everything_ spun out of control. More zombies were hit in the crossfire, and more skeletons joined the battle. Then a spider was accidentally hit by one of these zombies, and it too raged at what were moments ago its comrades. Jesse thought he might have heard a creeper explode, too. All of this happened while Petra just watched.

 _Wow, she is **awesome**!_

Petra laughed.

“Ha! That oughta keep ‘em busy!” she exclaimed.

Petra turned to him and quickly reached out a hand to him. As soon as he grabbed her hand, she pulled him to his feet. It was harder to stand than it should have been, but as astonished as he was at her brilliant display, he was still a little shaken up.

“Come on,” she said, “Let’s get out of the open.”

She waved for him to follow her as she took off.

 _Chickens…_ he thought to himself as he chased after Petra, desperately hoping she knew where she was going. _I would **definitely** rather fight the chickens…_

« … »

“Woo…” Jesse gasped, still sounding short of breath. “Thanks, Petra. I would’ve been a zombie dinner if you hadn’t found me.”

Petra looked back at him, smiling casually. She walked on as Jesse followed her down a ladder and through the old abandoned mineshaft that led to her ‘house’, if you could call it that.

“Hey,” she said, to give him credit, “you did pretty well for a total noob.”

“How would you know?”

Petra couldn’t tell if he was genuinely skeptical, or if he was just belittling himself.

“You survived long enough for me to find you. That’s pretty impressive.”

It wasn’t completely untrue, though she did feel a little guilty after leaving him to fend for himself for so long.

 _Ehh… he was doing fine._

She’d faced much worse before, and Jesse was pretty fearless—

Suddenly Jesse squealed and Petra turned to see him spastically flailing his hands around his head. The bat that had apparently surprised him squeaked and flew away, leaving a startled Jesse looking frazzled.

 _He’s scared of **bats**?_ Petra thought. _Who’s scared of **bats**?_

 _  
_

She didn’t say anything, but raised a quizzical eyebrow.

They were probably about the most harmless—and useless—mobs in existence.

She gave an impulsive chuckle. Jesse frowned.

“What? They’re gross!”

Petra decided to ignore that comment for his sake. “What were you doing out in the forest all alone at night, anyway?”

“Long story short,” Jesse sighed, “Reuben ran off and I went to find him.”

Oh. Of course that was why. It was almost as though she liked him for a reason.

That reminder made her wonder…

 _I wonder if… he might want to… come with me…_

Weirdly, she couldn’t imagine him saying yes, or no to such a bizarre request, but… there would never be a better time. After all, she’d just helped him out, so surely he might trust her more now, right? If she were going to ask him, she would need to tell him about it for starters. She wouldn’t mind doing so anyway, if only to strike up conversation.

She started to pull out her new Wither skull, but hesitated.

 _Would he be impressed by this?_

Not that she cared so much about what other people thought of her, but she did care about her image. She wanted to make sure she was seen as a fighter. Jesse just _was_ a fighter, whether he looked like one or not. The amazing thing was… he was cool with that, and… she thought that was cool.

 _Nine years and still going strong._ Even though he’d never won, that simple fact almost made him more admirable in her eyes.

But would he care about something like this? Her gut told her he wouldn’t. He wasn’t the type to value that kind of thing.

Then again… Jesse had simple tastes.

Here she was, a kick-butt-awesome, adventurer hunter, and she was nervously trying to impress a socially doomed country bumpkin who screamed like a girl and carried around farm tools in his pocket.

 _What is wrong with me?_

She didn’t need to overthink this. It was a skull. He was a boy. What was not to be impressed by?

“Um,” Jesse broke the long silence. “Where are we going?”

Petra just looked back at him and grinned. “I want to show you something.”

Jesse was quiet for a moment as he looked around the shaft.

“Not that this isn’t a really cool, dimly-lit tunnel,” Jesse sounded nervous as he said, “but... how far away is this thing you wanna show me?”

Petra stopped and turned around to face him, crossing her arms with a wry smile. “Why? This isn’t your first time in a cave, is it, Farmer Boy?”

“Pff, _no_ ,” said Jesse, only a _hint_ of uncertainty in his tone. “I go in caves all the time! You know, usually… during the daytime… staying close to the entrance—but you’ve seen one cave, you’ve seen ‘em all, right?”

“Heh, sure,” Petra chuckled, reaching into her pocket “but have you ever seen… a Wither skull?”

She pulled out her prize.

“Woah!” he gasped.

“Fresh from the Nether,” she bragged. “You’re the first person I’ve showed it to. So, you’d better appreciate this.”

“You risked your life for a dusty old skull?”

Petra’s smile fell.

“No—I mean—not—” he stammered, “—it’s awesome, but—that’s—insane, Petra! You could’ve gotten yourself killed!”

 _Aww, he’s… worried about me._

Then she found herself smiling again and chuckled. “Don’t worry so much. I can handle myself.”

Jesse looked kind of embarrassed, but still sounded worried as he apparently tried to dismiss his own concern, per her request. “R-Right, of course you can. I guess… going to the scariest place in the world is just another day at work for you, huh?”

She pocketed the skull again and found herself smiling as she walked on and explained further.

“There’s this guy I’m meeting up with at EnderCon—he’s gonna trade me a diamond for it.”

“That’s worth a _diamond_?”

Jesse seemed amazed. You’d think he’d never laid eyes on one.

“Oh, it’s _worth_ at least three,” she said, “but good luck finding someone who will pay that for it. For all the trouble I had to go to get it, I should be asking for much more, but the idea of paying more than a _whole_ diamond for anything is just crazy to most people.”

Jesse stopped. “Wow.”

Petra stopped herself and turned to look back at him again. “Wow... what?”

“In a single day, you went to the Nether, you killed a Wither skeleton...”

“In a single day, you went to the Nether, you killed a Wither skeleton...”

Petra thought about mentioning the fact that she had actually killed _sixteen_ Wither skeletons, and that was getting _incredibly_ lucky. Still, he seemed impressed enough—and worried enough—with just the one, so she decided not to.

“I mean, I _did_ build a super-cool statue, but still. It’s pretty sweet being you, huh?”

 _Ask him,_ her own thoughts commanded her. _Ask him now._

“Not that almost dying in the Nether is all that… sweet, but you know, it’s awesome of course…”

 _There will never be a better opportunity._

“It’s just dangerous and scary and… aaand, you don’t care. Never mind.”

“You know…” Petra found herself blurting out. “You could… come with me.”

She turned around and continued walking, steeling her nerves to retain her composure. She’d done it. She’d asked him to back her up.

“Huh?” Jesse sounded shocked. “You want ME? To come with YOU.”

“I mean, if you’re too nervous, I totally get it. But I wouldn’t mind a little backup.”

 _“I’d be **honored** to be your backup!”_ she thought she heard him say.

“You don’t have to make such a big deal out of it. I just said—”

“What? I didn’t say anything.”

Petra blinked herself back into the moment.

“Right. Of course you didn’t,” she said, trying to sound tough. “I was—joking. It was a joke.”

“Oh.” Jesse rubbed the back of his head.

She felt a little bad for making him feel stupid in her effort to maintain her dignity, and quickly broke the silence before it could get awkward.

“Well, you’re not saying no—so I’ll take that as a yes?”

She hoped she didn’t sound too nervous, and silently prayed that Jesse was as clueless as he looked sometimes.

Jesse smiled and somewhat hesitantly said, “Oh, sure. Okay.”

After that was over, they lapsed into silence. Petra was just kind of amazed.

 _Wow… that… wasn’t hard._

She wasn’t sure why she had been expecting it to be. Normally, if she wanted something, she’d go out and get it, no hesitation. She didn’t hesitate to talk to people. She didn’t hesitate to buy something if she needed it. Even in the heat of battle, she didn’t hesitate to _strike._

So… why had she been so hesitant about pursuing her relationships?

Jesse wasn’t the only one she cared about, after all. Farmer Boy aside, she _still_ needed some stable support she could fall back on. The only thing _still_ standing in the way of that was the fact that her current friends were _still_ at odds, and up until now, she’d just been sitting by, watching. Idly. She hated being idle. It wasn’t her way. She wanted to bring them together, she just hadn’t been sure how. She was a lone wolf hunter, not the neighborhood peacemaker. She had no experience in this kind of thing.

No. This wasn’t her. She wasn’t ‘Petra, the hopeless romantic’, or ‘Petra, the loner with no friends’, or even ‘Petra, the courageous treasure hunter’. She was ‘Petra, whoever she dang well wants to be’, and if she wanted to be a pacifistic, peacemaking, block of fluff, then she was gonna do it.

Jesse would do it.

 _If there was an argument between Olivia and Axel, Jesse wouldn’t just stand by and watch, he would do something about it._

And this was her chance.

Above all, Petra was a _fighter_ , and she decided long ago that this was something worth fighting for. She couldn’t just keep hoping that they would eventually settle their differences. Just waiting for things to happen never made things happen. She of all people knew that. She had to take action. It was time she stopped moping about how sucky her ironic choice of friends was and actually did something.

It was time to strike.

 __

« … »

If you know these things, blessed are you if you do them.

— John 13:17

* * *

#### Author's Notes

Hoo wee! For a chapter where most of the events were actually just taken straight from the game, and probably has the most canon elements of all the chapters put together so far, it sure accumulated a lot of author’s notes! Don’t feel like you have to read them. ;P

First, I do realize that I forgot to mention Jesse packing his sword when he was grabbing things for the competition, so he just kinda _has_ it here. I’m going to fix that later, but sorry about that. XD

Also, something I’ve noticed is particularly hard about the novelization process, or—not ‘hard’ per se, but rather—just tricky, is description. Particularly description of the environment. When I’m writing original prose for an original story, or at least an original scene, I naturally fall into ‘no one knows what this looks like, so I need to describe it’, mode, however it’s like when I’m _rewriting_ a scene that already exists, that part of my brain just completely turns off. I know, because during the first write-through of this chapter, I 100% neglected to write ANY description. Looking over it, even _I_ had trouble understanding what was going on and what/who was where. X’D

Tip: Whenever you don’t want the characters to have to explain what you already spent three chapters explaining, just have them “Long story short” it. ;’P

Since nobody knows where ‘Pete’s sake’ came from anyway, I just made it Steve. :P

\- Petra’s a Dork — I’ve mentioned before how I’ve had to change her character to make her make more sense and whatnot, so yeah, you may have noticed Petra acting more… well, dorky than usual. :P I have an explanation for this that isn’t necessary if you’re not bothered by it, but if you’re wondering why, here it is.

Don’t get me wrong, Petra has always been awesome, but she’s not good at being honest with herself, or other people. Externally she puts forth a persona of fearless kick-butt awesomeness, but internally she struggles with things just like everyone else, and doesn’t show people her less cool qualities.

You get to see these qualities of hers later on several occasions. (If you’re interested in specifics, message me, ‘cause I don’t want to put them here.) She didn’t develop that later. It’s always been there, but she’s just very good at covering it up and pretending it’s not.

\- “You know, you could come with me.” — Petra asking Jesse to come with her is never explained aside from ‘I wouldn’t mind having a little back up’ which doesn’t sound valid anyway because _she_ just saved _his_ life, and to me has always felt like a badly motivated excuse to move the plot along. They seem to imply that Petra is a loner who’s mysterious and kind of distant from everyone else, so you can’t really reasonably just assume that they’re actually close besides that. I don’t think I really need to explain that Petra liking Jesse gives reason to her 1) showing him the Wither skull to begin with, and 2) inviting him to come with her. (Like, Petra, do you rescue random people in the forest only to randomly flex your super-pro-Nether-warrior skills and randomly invite them to come with you to a random job of yours often? _AnotherreasonitmakesmoresenseforJessetobemalejustsaying…_ )

\- Petra the Stalker Chick — Aaagaaain, was not just an excuse to do more shipping… :P So, here’s the thing. IN the GAME, she knows that Jesse’s sword broke, but if you play it, there’s on average a _whole_ minute between when his sword breaks and when she shows up. My thought was, seriously, there’s no way she could know that—UNLESS she was actually watching him all that time! :O SOLD. FIXED. (Petra does so many weird things that only make sense if she likes him…)

\- Wither Skull Drop Chance — I just want to note that Petra getting THAT lucky with getting the Wither skull is _SOOOO_ improbable it’s not even funny. XD On average, you’d have to kill forty Wither skeletons to get a single skull. And further still, her being able to kill that many in such a short period of time is also very not funny ridiculous, but I had to explain why she’d be able to, so sorry about that. XD Another thing I might come back and fix later.

\- “Come with me if you wanna not die.” — They mention several times that Petra is a great fighter, the best they know even, but she doesn’t really even fight unless you make certain choices, and even when she fights she isn’t that much more impressive than anyone else. Seriously, she saved Jesse by spamming and killing _one_ spider. Hardly spectacular since he just killed multiple zombies. If she’s been doing this all her life as they seem to try to get across, she _is_ going to be a _very_ good fighter, and I really wanted to show that.

\- Petra’s Bad Grammar — Uuuuugh… okay, so in the game, with this scene specifically, Petra makes two horrendous grammar mistakes, and I debated with myself at _length_ whether or not I should purposely leave them in… ^^’ Eventually I decided… to heck with it, I’m keeping them, for two reasons. Because I think it adds some character, and also, one thing I’ve always loved about MCSM is how natural and realistically awkward the dialogue was at times, and I don’t lose that in the name of ‘fixing everything’.

\- Really? Using a zombie as a shield? — Have you played Minecraft? :P This is flipping fun to do! Also, this isn’t nearly as stupid to do in Minecraft as it would be in real life because getting a skeleton to shoot a zombie isn’t that _hard_ , and it completely distracts them so you don’t even have to worry about them.

\- Really? Just two punches? — Minecrafters will probably be thinking that it takes WAY more than two hits without a single tool to kill a zombie, and you’re right. In _Minecraft_ it does, but in Minecraft: _Story Mode_ there are plenty of times that the characters are able to kill mobs with less power, and I feel I should mention that canonically, Jesse actually kills the zombie in _one_ hit. ;P My canon is that in this world, because it’s more like a real world, one can simply ‘punch harder’ and do more damage. I did raise it to two hits however, because I still thought one hit was a little unbelievable. Just in case anyone _else_ was bothered by that. ;P

\- What about the Pocket thing? D: — I know, I know, y’all loved that little detail so dang much, but I thought about it and I think now that capitalizing pocket is unnecessary. It’s not an incredibly important element of the story itself, and there are better ways to establish things like this. I’m going to be going over the previous chapters to fix this, but for now, here’s the explanation for why it isn’t now. :) This is the writing process, people! I like it, I hate it, I love it, delete it.

\- Where’d You Come From? — They make it pretty clear that Jesse is totally surrounded, but if that were the case, where did Petra come from? Did she just phase through one of the cliff walls? :P Well, the best I could think of on short notice was to have her sort of watching from above which 1) explains why Jesse can’t see her until she jumps out, and 2) why he couldn’t just escape to wherever she came from.

#### Choice Notes

So that dialogue at the end there had quite a few selections of choices that were all combined together, but that wasn’t really intentional. I always thought this convo was a bit awkward and clunky, and in my efforts to just make it less so, I ended up using a lot of those snippets. XD

\- Fanboy Jesse — Something else they draw attention to in the game a lot (at least at first) is the fact that Jesse clearly sees himself as out of Petra’s league, as he can say things like “I know! I was there! It was amazing!” :3 and “We’re super close now.” and such. He does this so exaggeratedly at times that it even comes across as fanboyish. While I don’t think that’s necessarily very in character, it’s still a part of Jesse that shouldn’t simply be ignored. XD That being said, with Petra also established later (without specifics) as being a bit of a dork herself, I think it makes sense that this is just the kind of thing she would fantasize about. Petra likes to be admired, though what’s funny is that if this _actually_ happened, it probably _would_ make her a bit uncomfortable. :P

#### Glossary

\- Bats — The most harmless and useless mobs in existence. They don’t do anything, they just fly in your face, and are annoying.

\- Block of Fluff — This isn’t a real thing in Minecraft… or is it? :] So my bro was fishing around in OLD Minecraft assets, and he found a texture file simply called ‘fluff’. Apparently it was a texture used for clouds that was removed in Minecraft Alpha, so it’s kind of mysterious. :J


	9. Chapter VIII – Time to Strike

#### Foreword

WHOOPS! It seems I spaced on posting Friday! My apologies! You’d think it would be easier to keep up with since it’s already written and all, but not having to actually write it actually makes it easier to forget. XD Anyway, here it is now, and I will definitely still be posting again this Friday too. ;D

Also, another whoops, because posting this, I just realized that one of the chapters were mislabeled. Sorry about that!

Oh my GOSH this one came out so long… O.o According to the first result on Google, _way_ too long. So on top of coming out SOOOO long, I had very little time to work on before its original deadline, so my apologies if it’s kind of… half-asleepish. :} Many late nights were ground through for this, and it definitely shows, but I’m still pretty proud of this one. :)

Anyways, here you go! Seriously, brace yourselves, ‘cause this one is a doozy. XD My longest chapter yet by far.

* * *

Chapter VIII

#### Time to Strike

««««« … »»»»»

_He’s okay,_ Jesse told himself. _He made it back just fine. In fact, he’s probably wandering around sniffing out buttons to press or something…_

Although now that Jesse’s nerves had had a chance to settle, he was starting to get anxious again.

He tried to remind himself that there wasn’t anything he could do. Of course with the exception of running out into the untamed forest again without a weapon or decent skills, but… he doubted his chances. If he had to fight another tiny zombie, his heart would stop.

Now Jesse just _hoped_ Reuben wouldn’t try to come back for him and risk his life again. It seemed nothing was going his way today. He would have asked if things could possibly get any worse, but he didn’t want to jinx himself. With his luck, he would end up a pumpkin by midnight.

“Well. Here we are.” Petra called his attention back. “My home.”

His mind had wandered off in the long silence as he allowed her to lead him like a sheep. He was honestly glad to finally have the chance to let his brain air out and not worry about where he was going or what he was doing. When he came back to himself, he noticed they were in a cave room.

Jesse marveled.

It was… small. That was the first thing he noticed, anyhow.

Petra’s—uhh—home was composed of a bed, a torch, and a chest, with no doors or windows. Unless the giant hole in the wall where the cave let out counted for one.

_This is where she **lives**?_

It didn’t look _bad_ , just kind of dull and… lonely. But he supposed that was just how she liked it. 

“Wow,” he said, trying not to sound too underwhelmed at the sight of it. “It’s, um… cozy.”

“I know, right?” Petra said. “I don’t like to brag, but with digs like _this_ … Pretty sweet being me, huh?”

He… honestly couldn’t tell if she was being sarcastic or not, but better safe than sorry. “I mean, it’s—it’s nice.”

“Hey, it’s fine,” she said with a mild chuckle. “You can be honest with me. I’m not a noob, I know it’s nothing special.”

Petra walked out in front of him and sat down on her bed as she continued, “I mean it’s certainly not as luxurious as your _treehouse_ , but I _have_ been trying to work on that.” She put a hand to her chin and, looking thoughtful, she mused, “I’ve been thinking about getting a potted flower or something…”

Then she turned to him. “What do you think?”

Jesse quirked an eyebrow. “You want _my_ advice?”

“Of course. Who better to ask about houseplants than the one and only Farmer Boy himself?”

He blinked. Not that he had so little trust in his home decoration skills, but he was a little surprised. No one had ever asked for his advice on something like this before. The closest anyone ever got was when Olivia asked him if he had a preference between choice A, B, C or D.

“Oh. Well. Okay. Um…” he stumbled over his words, then put on his most confident face as he gave his recommendation. “Flowers are nice, but if you _really_ want to spruce the place up, you should get a poster.”

She looked bemused. “A poster?”

Jesse smiled and said proudly. “Yeah! Posters are the best! They really bring out the life in a room. You can take it from me, _I_ built an awesome creeper statue.”

He struck a confident pose. Petra blinked.

“Umm… Okay. I’ll… think about it.”

Mission accomplished.

Jesse grinned in satisfaction, and he wondered if he had one he could give her. It could be a thank you gift for the green dye. He thought about it, then realized that something was still bothering him.

“So… did you _actually_ bring me down here _just_ to ask me about plants?” he realized how that sounded and corrected it. He didn’t want to seem ungrateful or impatient. “I mean, not that I mind, but… I was just wondering…”

He wasn’t actually sure what to say after that, so he was happy that she interrupted.

“Oh right. Here.”

She indicated a spot to his left and he turned, now noticing the grid topped block sitting there. It was a crafting table. He had never actually used one before. He bought everything and never had the materials to craft anything, so he’d never needed one.

“You just keep a crafting table down here?”

“Hey, you never know when you might need to craft some sheers,” she teased, mimicking his tone from before.

Technically, you didn’t need a crafting table to make sheers. He happened to know that from a book he skimmed through once on hand crafting.

“For your information,” he said, crossing his arms, “you don’t need a crafting table to craft sheers.”

“Yeah, but who still uses hand crafting?” Petra said through a laugh.

That was true, and she undoubtedly knew more about crafting than he did, so he decided best not to try to retort.

Jesse just blinked.

“So,” she said, “since that wooden sword of yours got busted...”

Jesse turned back to her and asked in excitement, “You’re giving me a new one?”

His better judgment kicked in a moment too late on that one, but before he could take it back she said, “Even better. You can craft your own.”

Jesse perked.

Did she just say… ‘craft’?

« … »

_“Since that wooden sword of yours got busted...”_

_“Wait a minute, how do you know that my sword broke?” asked Jesse, skeptical._

_“I saw it break before I rescued you,” she tried to explain._

_“But my sword broke ages before you showed up! What took you so long?”_

_“I was, uh… planning my attack.”_

_He crossed his arms in disappointment. “You spent TWENTY minutes planning your attack, and the best you could come up with was to charge in with a pickaxe and spam it to death?” He stuck his nose in the air and said with an offended scowl, “We are so through.”_

Petra blinked and shook her head. She really needed to stop letting her imagination run wild.

Jesse wasn’t mad. On the contrary, Jesse actually seemed excited that he’d broken his sword. Ecstatic even.

“You’re giving me a new one?” He asked like the mere thought of it was mind-blowing to him.

“Even better. You can make your own.”

Jesse looked like his jaw would have hit the floor if it wasn’t shocked into place. He looked amazed, and also kind of overwhelmed and a bit nervous.

She pointed out the chest by her table. “Just grab what you need.”

He took notice, then said, “Oh. Okay. Thanks,”

She could easily tell he was underplaying his true feelings. He sounded casual, but looked like he was secretly nervous.

If she wasn’t already painfully aware of Jesse’s noobishness, he proved it yet again when he was surprised that she had a crafting table of all things. As if she needed more reassurance of the hopelessness of this relationship. But he was about to dig himself even deeper still.

He knelt down and began rummaging through it, taking an awful long time for just three items. A moment later, he stopped and still hadn’t pulled anything out.

She raised an eyebrow. “You… _do_ know how to craft a sword, right?”

“Uh, of _course_ I do,” he said, glancing back at her.

Petra waited another moment before she said anything else. “One sti—”

“One stick, right.”

She paused, then slowly continued, “And two—”

“Two…” he murmured.

_Come on, Jesse._

“Pieces of cobbles—”

“Pieces of cobblestone. Right.”

She wanted to be annoyed. If he had been anyone else, she would have been.

Jesse pulled his head out of the chest and now held the three items in his hands like a little kid might hold a slice of cake.

“Oh, here we go. Jackpot!”

Jesse had a funny definition of ‘jackpot’. She wouldn’t spoil his fun though. Or embarrass him by calling out his obvious lack of crafting experience.

He faced away from her and started crafting.

“Just place the pieces on the table.”

Of _course_ he already _knew_ how, but it wouldn’t hurt to give the poor little noob a push in the right direction. You know, _just_ in case. Even with that push in the right direction though, he still seemed to be struggling.

Petra chuckled. “It’s like this is your first time crafting or something.”

“Ha ha,” said Jesse.

Petra’s endeared smile slowly melted away as she started to get impatient. No one could be _this_ bad at something so simple, right? It was a three by three grid. You just made a pattern with items. It wasn’t exactly an advanced redstone circuit.

“C’mon Jesse, we don’t have all night.”

She gave him another minute. Then another. Aaaand another.

“Put the stick at the bottom, and then the two stones above it.”

He had arranged and rearranged the items on the table now several times. It took him a good ten seconds still before Petra finally heard the crafting table click.

“Ah-HA!” he exclaimed.

She smiled… until Jesse turned around and revealed very proudly the lever he’d made. He looked about twice as happy as _she_ had a moment ago.

He was doing this on purpose, wasn’t he?

“Jesse…” Petra sighed, “a lever’s not going to do you much good in a fight. Is it?”

It was a good thing she didn’t give him the materials for an iron sword or he might have made a pressure plate. If you asked Petra, pressure plates weren’t worth _stone_ , let alone _iron_.

“Sorry,” he said, looking like he was having a hard time wiping the goofy smile from his face.

“It’s fine. It’s literally a quarter of a plank stuck to a piece of cobble. Just… make a sword this time please?”

“Okay, I got this!” he said enthusiastically, and still beaming, turned back to the box to grab more materials.

Heeee… wasn’t doing it on purpose.

He was just _that_ much of a noob.

Petra couldn’t help but smile again and give a silent chuckle. That quality of his was endearing in its own right.

With the second click of the table, Petra internally pleaded that it wasn’t a pressure plate this time. However Jesse turned around now clutching a sword in his excited grip.

“Behold!” he announced, “My awesome new stone sword!”

Petra smiled. “Isn’t it better when you make it yourself?”

“Wow! Are all swords that easy to make?”

She raised an eyebrow for probably the millionth time.

“Um… as a matter of fact,” she said, hoping her sarcasm was _somewhat_ subtle. “ _Yeah_.”

« … »

Jesse already felt like they were best friends. She had saved his life, invited him to go with her to one of her cool deals, brought him to her house thing, _and_ let him make a lev—a sword. If that didn’t say best friend, he didn’t know _what_ did.

He had always liked Petra. After she saved the life of his best friend, and now his own life, how could he not like her? She was a generally standoffish kind of person, but he liked to think she considered him a friend.

However, he hadn’t exactly made a very good first impression. He suspected she was avoiding him for a while after they first met. She had been new to town though, so she was probably just too preoccupied. He got the feeling she wasn’t very social. Like _he_ was one to judge. He was ‘the guy with the pig’. He was hardly Mister Popular. By now, she probably had more acquaintances than he did after living there his whole life.

Still, as awesome as it was to be hanging out with Petra, he needed to be getting back to town. He needed to make sure Reuben was okay, and assuming they made it back—because the alternative was a terrifying prospect—Axel and Olivia would be worried about him. Fortunately _they_ knew better than to go scouring the forest for him in the middle of the night, but he wanted to keep them waiting as little as possible.

“So uh, I really should get back to town,” he said. “Axel and Olivia are probably wondering where I am.”

“Agreed,” Petra—agreed. “Come on.”

She got to her feet and started down the mineshaft again, _back_ to where they came from. Jesse followed her down to another branch in the path. An even dimmer lit tunnel than before.

“Wait, isn’t town in _that_ direction?” he pointed back behind them “Wouldn’t that be faster?”

“It’s a shortcut,” was her response.

“Uhh, through here?” he said, trying not to sound too nervous. “Isn’t there a faster way that’s… less dark and dangerous?”

She spared him an incredulous look. “Would you rather swim through the river?”

_Well, she could have just said **no**._

« … »

Jesse left a trail of wet footprints behind him as he and Petra walked—and dripped—through town to EnderCon.

“How about that one?” he asked, pointing one of his wet hands at a cool poster of the Temple of the Order of the Stone.

“Jesse, I already told you,” she said. “Deal first. Posters later.”

He spotted another poster on the wall that he recognized and happily pointed it out.

“Oh, see that poster there?” Jesse asked in a hushed voice and explained, “That right there is a limited edition.”

Petra looked unamused. “Oh please, do tell me more about this ‘limited edition’, Poster Boy.”

Jesse opened his mouth.

“Ah— _don’t_. That was _sarcasm_ , Jesse.” She sighed. “So. When we’re making the deal, I need you to let me do the talking, okay? I just—really want this to go well, y’know?”

Jesse nodded. “Sure. I’ll let you handle it.”

“Great,” she said, sounding relieved. Then she added, “Aaand if you want to be _really_ useful, try to look intimidating.”

Petra smiled and he smiled back. “Like this?”

Jesse slouched, flexed his arms and gave the hardest, coldest looking glare he could. For a finishing touch, he gave a menacing growl.

“Well…” she said, “you _are_ scaring me.”

“There he is!”

Jesse heard a familiar voice call out, and he turned just in time—with tremendous relief—to see Olivia and Axel running up to them.

“Olivia! Axel!” he shouted.

_They made it back okay!_

His friends came to a stop in front of him.

“Jesse!” Olivia said, then moved in to give him a hug. “Oh thank goodness you’re—soaking!” and with that she pushed him away. “And—you have Petra with you? What _happened_?”

He opened his mouth to explain, but before he could Petra jumped in. “We were fighting some monsters up on the bridge and this noob fell off into the river.”

Jesse gaped and shot her an indignant scowl. “Fell?! You pushed me!”

“I did _not_.”

“And you jumped in after him?” Axel wondered.

“Of course I did,” said Petra. “I wasn’t going to let him have all the fun splashing around.”

“It was so cool!” Jesse started going off, too excited to stay mad at her for long. “We were falling and there was this creeper, and I punched it in the nose—”

“You did _not_ ,” Petra interjected.

“Okay, so maybe I imagined some of it, _but_ I _definitely_ remember—”

“Ahem,” Olivia cut in, then gave him that look that said, ‘You better start _actually_ explaining some things.’ 

“Oh, right,” he said, clearing his own throat. “Guys, you all know Petra, my new—super-close friend. We’re super-close now.”

Axel looked confused. Olivia put her hands to her hips and raised an eyebrow. Petra facepalmed.

Jesse bashfully scratched his head and explained in a way that was hopefully _less_ awkward. “Um… I sorta got myself cornered by zombies and she uh… sorta helped me out.”

“Oh, also I _sorta_ saved his life, and he _sorta_ owes me big time.”

“Nice recap,” said Olivia sarcastically.

“So…” Axel drawled, “no Reuben then, huh?”

With that one comment, Jesse’s heart sank again. Axel and Olivia were all right, thank the Creator, but Reuben was still missing.

“I found him,” Jesse explained, “but before I knew what was happening, we were under attack by a zombie horde! So I told him to run for it, and I haven’t seen him since.”

Jesse wilted, and a quiet moment later, Petra patted him on the shoulder.

“I’m sorry Jesse,” she said, sounding somewhat guilty.

“It’s not your fault, Petra,” Jesse reassured her. “Just you showing up was _more_ than I could have hoped for.”

Petra was quiet for a moment then said, “I know.”

“Hey, It’s okay Jesse,” Olivia said, “He’ll turn up sooner or later—I just know it!”

“Right,” Petra said. “He’s gotta be here somewhere. Don’t worry, we’ll find him.”

Jesse inhaled and exhaled, and tried to take heart in their words. “I hope you’re right.”

“What were you doing in the woods, Petra?” asked Axel.

“Funny you should ask, I happen to live there,” she replied. “Jesse’s just lucky he has such a high-pitched scream.” 

“Oh,” said Axel. “Coooool…”

Another long awkward silence later, Olivia sighed and brushed herself off, “Well, now I’m depressed, _and_ wet.”

“Huh?” Jesse said, raising a curious eye.

In lieu of a response, Olivia unenthusiastically gestured to something behind them.

It was… some kind of machine? It was made of dirt and glass? It had some redstone, it didn’t look like it did much. Inside were a bunch of…chickens? They were running around like their lives depended on it, but for the life of himself, Jesse couldn’t figure out what it was. Some kind of… torture device? Or perhaps a… fancy… fish tank? But… with chickens? Chicken tank?

He scratched his head and squinted at it.

“Uhh… what is that?” he asked.

“That, Jesse…” Olivia stated, a shred of bitter finality in her tone as she concluded, “…is the winner of this year’s EnderCon Building Competition.”

What.

WHAT.

“Wait a second, wait a second, wait just a second, _that_ … THAT is the _winning build_?!”

“Yeeeeep.”

“This is just sad…” Axel lamented.

“ _Tell_ me about it,” Olivia agreed.

Jesse was just stunned. In fact, he wouldn’t be surprised if his mouth was stuck hanging open for a whole _year_.

“Well… at least the Ocelots lost this time,” said Axel.

“I don’t know…” Olivia disagreed, “I think I would have rather lost to the Ocelots than whatever _this_ is. Seriously, what even _is_ this redstone?! I could have wired this in my _sleep_! In fact, whoever built it probably _did_.”

Jesse shook his head and finally found his tongue. “But—But with so many people competing to see Gabriel, how did _this_ win?”

“Apparently there were more cheaters this year than just Aiden,” Olivia explained. “When they were announcing the winners, six teams _besides_ the Ocelots were disqualified for sabotage. Needless to say, none of the teams that got sabotaged had much of a chance either.”

“Dang…” Jesse muttered.

Well, at least his misery had some company for once.

“I gotta admit, I’m pretty bummed we lost... _again_.” Axel mumbled.

“I mean there’s no way we were going to let you go after Reuben yourself,” said Olivia “but... it’s okay to be a _little_ disappointed, right?”

“Or like, a lot disappointed?” Axel corrected.

“The saddest of the sad sacks?” Olivia stipulated.

“Ugh, losing is the worst.” Axel complained.

“WORST-er than the worst.” Olivia double complained.

“I’m so low, you could wipe the floor with me.” Axel triple complained.

Jesse shook his head.

He had to pull himself together. Had to pull _them_ together. This wasn’t a loss it was—a… new opportunity, or… something.

Jesse walked between them and gave each of them a pat on the shoulder. He faked a smile—as he was getting pretty adept at doing—and said as confidently as possible, “Come on guys, it’s just a competition.”

 _A competition that would have let us meet Gabriel the Warrior…_ he thought.

“There’s always next year.”

_As if **that** makes a difference._

“Cheer up, guys!”

_What a letdown…_

Axel and Olivia spared each other knowing looks.

“I dunno, Jesse…” Olivia said, which Axel followed up on.

“The spirit is willing... but the flesh is sad.”

“Hey,” said Petra, “if at first you don’t succeed... then, uh, succeed later than originally planned. Right, Jesse?”

Jesse smiled. “Yeah, exactly!”

_Much… **much** later…_

Jesse was dying inside.

 _Gotta stay strong,_ he told himself. _For their sake._

“Hey, Jesse,” Petra said, “It’s time to go see about that—thing.”

“Oh, right. The ‘thiiing,’” Jesse now remembered.

Olivia sighed. “Ugh, Jesse, you’re as bad as Lukas,” she said. “Axel and I were gonna head into EnderCon anyway—See you later then?”

“Yeah,” Jesse smiled. “See ya later,”

“Later guys,” said Petra.

They started to walk off, but Olivia stopped in her tracks and turned back to face them once more.

“Oh, and Petra,” she said. “Thanks for helping Jesse.”

Petra smiled, gave a small shrug and a simple, “Sure.”

Olivia nodded and waved behind her as she followed after Axel who commented as he walked, “I heard somebody saying there’s a free cake booth…”

Jesse waved back to them and turned to Petra who gestured for him to follow.

“Let’s go,” she said, and Jesse obeyed.

Of course he wouldn’t say it, but inside… Jesse was kind of glad that Petra had pulled him away from them. He wasn’t sure how much longer he could fake it.

« … »

As soon as Axel and Olivia were out of earshot, Petra watched Jesse’s optimistic demeanor turn into a dismal one. He gave a deep sigh, and went from being the picture of confidence to the picture of misery and suffering.

He grumbled and groaned, kicking at rocks and mumbling things under his breath as they walked. From, “I can’t believe this…” to, “So unfair.”

Part of her was somewhat annoyed, but another part was somewhat surprised and curious to _why_. Jesse’s upbeat and carefree attitude was almost unbelievable at times. No one could be _that_ confident all the time, right? Somehow though, he _was_. But this…

 _This_ was a side of Jesse that she had never seen before, and she wasn’t sure what to think. She admired him so much for always being the optimist, but was that just a farce? Was he just putting up a bold face when he was really feeling just as sorry for himself as everyone else?

She almost felt like she’d been lied to… but… that wasn’t fair. It was a natural feeling—she of all people should know that. She couldn’t blame Jesse for being frustrated that they lost the competition they’d been trying to win for a whole decade now, but why had his attitude changed so completely, and so suddenly in mere seconds?

Jesse didn’t care how he looked to other people. He didn’t care if people judged him or called him dumb names. He certainly didn’t care what his _friends_ thought, because they knew him.

Unless… maybe he _did_.

Jesse _was_ the picture of confidence, but she was right before. _No_ one could be that confident all the time. Not her, not Lukas, and not even Jesse. Everyone had their masks, but Jesse was special. She used to think it was because he was so crystal clear that he _had_ no mask, but now she wasn’t so sure.

It was like… he _was_ putting on a mask, but instead of doing it selfishly around strangers, he did selflessly for his friends? Could that be? Could it be that he did feel sad and miserable just like them, but he wanted them to feel confident?

She didn’t know if it was the weird subconscious girly part of her that wanted him to be perfect that had thought this a flaw, but the realization of this possibility only made her respect him even more.

Petra stopped as they arrived at the meeting spot. Jesse kicked another rock, not seeming to notice that they’d stopped.

 _Then why…_ she wondered, _why is he acting like this around **me**?_

She was surprised by how quickly the answer to _that_ question came.

She was his friend, but not a member of his team. It implied trust, but also distance. It made sense, really. He knew her well enough to be honest with her, but didn’t feel responsible for her the way he did with his close friends.

It sounded silly just thinking about it but… maybe… that’s what she needed to be right now. Maybe Jesse needed someone he could be open with who wasn’t too close to the issue. She wasn’t sure what to think of _that_ either, but she wasn’t one to overthink things. _Normally_. She seemed to be doing it a lot more recently.

Whatever happened, she decided she would take it in stride.

“I’m sorry about the contest, Jesse,” she said, craning her head to look at him. Jesse smiled slightly, and she had an idea. She thought she might test him with a little optimism of her own.

“But hey, come on,” she continued with a smile. “You said so yourself, there’s always next year right?”

Jesse wasn’t smiling anymore.

“Yeah, yeah,” he grumbled, betraying the first hint of hostility she’d seen in him all night. “I just wanted THIS to be the year we finally beat that jerk!”

Aaand there it was. The most important thing that needed to be resolved and the opportunity she had been waiting for, all put out on the table and crafted into a block of perfect timing.

She wondered what it was about Lukas that Jesse was so offended by. It wasn’t like she knew him _that_ well, but it wasn’t like Jesse to be so hostile towards… _anyone_. He didn’t seem the type to hold grudges or have any enemies at all, let alone someone who really had nothing against _him_. She wondered what it was about Lukas that he hated so much. Could it really just be his attitude? He liked her okay, and she wasn’t _much_ better.

Well, fortunately they had some time to kill before Ivor would arrive. Hopefully it would be enough time to find out.

« … »

“Hey, Jesse…”

Jesse almost thought he noticed a twinge of… something in Petra’s voice. Somberness? Unease? When he looked up at her however, she leaned casually up against the wall of one of the buildings without a trace of this unidentified emotion on her face. Had he imagined it?

“Yeah?” he replied.

“I’ve actually been wanting to talk to you about something.”

 _She_ had been wanting to talk to _him_? “On what grounds?”

Petra suddenly looked annoyed and she crossly stated, “Uh, how ‘bout on the grounds of ‘I have the right of free speech and I say whatever I want’?”

“Okay,” he muttered. “Uhhh-’bout what?”

Then, just as suddenly, her expression returned to what he now realized was a ‘contemplative’ one as she stared down at the floor. “About… what you just said.”

“About losing?”

Petra looked back up at him. “About _Lukas_.”

Jesse frowned. “Oh. What about him?”

He didn’t really want to ask, but he didn’t see a way around the conversation.

“You know, Jesse,” Petra said, “he may seem kind of arrogant, but he has come through for me in tricky situations. You might wanna get to know him—just in case.”

Immediately Jesse’s skepticism turned on as she started to list off the jerk’s ‘good qualities’.

“He’s good at building, that’s for sure…” Meaningless. “…It’s always useful to have a guy like that around…” Questionable. “…no matter what you might think of him personally.” Yeeeahno.

Jesse crossed his arms, unconvinced. “I already know him. I’ve had to _put up_ with him for ten freaking years.”

“So what do you have against him anyway?”

Jesse scoffed. “Pft, you mean _besides_ the fact that he’s a cocky punk who dresses the part and lets his lackeys run around rampant insulting whoever the heck they want and does nothing about it.”

He wasn’t giving him credit for telling Aiden to shut up at the competition. Too little too late, and what Aiden did _more_ than negated it. Besides, it was probably for selfish reasons anyway.

“Ohh… I get it,” Petra said. “You don’t hate ‘Lukas’, you hate ‘the leader of the Ocelots who doesn’t stand up to his dumb friends’.

“ _And_ who has the attitude of an ocelot,” Jesse added. Honestly, what kind of stupid name was ‘the Ocelots’ anyway?

“Right. Okay. Fair point,” she conceded. “He’s not the most _humble_ person, but his heart _is_ in the right place.”

Doubtful.

_Why is she being so defensive of him anyway?_

As he listened, a scary thought came to mind.

_I wonder if she likes him…_

“He’s really not that bad once you get to know him,” she said.

_That would really suck._

“In fact, if you ignore those other guys, he’s actually pretty cool.”

_That would break Axel’s heart._

“I mean… I get along with him, and don’t have many friends at all. Wait, that didn’t make sense…”

_I mean, it would be bad enough her liking any other guy. I can’t imagine someone **worse** than Lukas._

_Why did it have to be Lukas? Why couldn’t it have been **anyone** else? Poor Axel…_

Ultimately, it was none of his business who she chose to like. It had nothing to do with him. But—

“Hello?!” Petra hollered, “Overworld to Jesse! Are you listening?”

He snapped out of it. “Huh?” he said. “Huh? What? Yeah, I—huh?”

Petra huffed. “Okay look,” she said, sounding like her fuse had run out. Had he really spaced out for that long? “I know you’ve had your tiffs, but Lukas is _my_ friend, and I’m not just going to let you hate him without giving him a decent chance.”

Jesse blinked, kinda taken aback.

For some reason, her just being his friend had never even crossed his mind as a possibility. For some reason it was hard to imagine that guy having any _real_ friends.

“But—” Jesse tried to think of an argument, but he was starting to feel like he was grasping at straws. “Even if I wanted to—get to know him, there’s no way Olivia and Axel would go along with it.”

“Olivia and Axel aren’t the boss of you.” she said. “In _fact_ , if you ask me, it seems more like _you’re_ the boss of _them_. The chances of them ‘going along with it’ are _pretty_ high.”

Jesse bit his lip. He felt cornered, and against his own selfish desire, he found he could do nothing else but give up.

“Well…” he said, hesitantly asking next, “what do you want me to do?”

He’d done it. He’d asked. Now his fate was in her hands.

“Just—think about it, okay? Aaaand if you run into him at EnderCon—try talking to him.”

 _Okay…_ he thought. _That’s not **too** bad…_

Jesse tried to smile back, but it felt awkward. He was still processing what he’d just signed up for, but… he had to try, right? If Petra was so sure about it, then… maybe he… _wasn’t_ so bad? Was that too much to hope for? Would it be terrible for him to hope that Lukas turned out to be a two faced liar on top of being a jerk so he didn’t have to change his opinion? Yes.

No, if he was honest with himself—as he tried to be—he was just bitter. Still… maybe it was about time he tried to… ‘get along’.

Yeah… he could do that much.

Even with that… very… _very_ small resolve, all he could say in response was a simple, “Okay.”

Petra seemed satisfied at least. As the silence dragged on though, he was starting to feel even more weird. He felt a topic change was in order.

“So. Um. The guy you got the skull for—what’s his deal?”

“Ivor?” she said. “He’s kind of strange, I guess, but hey—everybody’s got their thing.”

_Their ‘thing’, huh?_

“And you never thought to ask him, hey—what’s with your whole... totally normal... not at all weird... _skull_ thing?”

“As long as this guy is willing to pay…” she trailed off. “…Speaking of which… where is he?”

Jesse looked around.

Come to think of it, they had been waiting for a solid ten minutes or so, but this ‘Ivor’ was no where to be seen.

“That’s weird...” Petra said, “he said the dark, creepy alley close to the gates, and I assumed by ‘the entrance to the convention grounds’ he meant once the event had started.”

Jesse blinked.

“Wait, HE wanted to met in the dark creepy alley?”

Petra looked bemused. “Yeeah?”

_That’s not creepy at all…_

“Well,” Jesse said, “are you sure _this_ is the dark, creepy alley he meant?”

“Hmm. I _was_ …” Petra looked thoughtful for a moment, then said, “Okay, new plan. You stay here just in case this _is_ the spot he meant, and I’ll look around.”

“I dunno, Petra,” he said, putting a fist to his mouth. “Something about this feels off to me.”

Petra dismissed his concern. “ _All_ of my secret deals feel off. That’s why I usually keep them a secret.”

With that she started off down into the street again. “I’ll be back before you know it. If he shows up while I’m gone, just stall for me.”

“Wait, Petra, you can’t just—!” but before he could finish, she was already gone. “—leave me here…”

Jesse wilted, letting the hand he just realized he had extended droop back to his side.

A long moment later, Jesse finally blinked.

“Oooookaaay…” he muttered. “All by myself in a creepy alley. Nothing to be afraid of at all? Pft, I mean who goes into creepy alleys anyway?”

Jesse looked around and was surprised when he noticed a chest sitting on the ground to his left.

“Mooore importantly…” he murmured to himself. “Who leaves a random chest unguarded in the middle of said ‘creepy alley’…?”

Jesse cautiously walked over to it and knelt down. He reached for it—

“Ahem!”

Jesse flinched back and let out a loud yelp, spinning around to see a dark figure slowly walk out of the shadows and into the light.

“And just who are YOU?” the man demanded. “Well?”

Jesse tried to think of a response, but he was drawing a blank.

“I’m waiting,” the man growled impatiently. “Answer me!”

Then Jesse remembered what Petra had said.

‘Try to look intimidating,’ she’d told him. So Jesse put on the toughest tough guy face he could and spoke up with a menacing voice, “The name’s Jesse. What’s it to _you_?”

“ _Jesse_?” he sneered, “I’m supposed to meet with _Petra_ , not whoever you are!”

So he _was_ Ivor.

“I’m with Petra. I’m—her partner,” Jesse tried to explain.

Ivor glowered at him. “Well _I_ am a very busy man.”

“You’re the guy who needed a Wither skull, right?”

“Not so loud, you idiot!”

Jesse flinched.

“Too many people know my business already.”

_What…?_

What did _that_ mean?

“Do you have the skull?” Ivor whispered. Very loudly, he might add.

“Uh… well…”

“You do or you don’t?” he demanded again. “You’d better not be toying with me!”

Jesse frowned. He’d had enough of this impatient blabbermouth.

“Take a breath, would you?” Jesse blurted out. “Petra has it—and she’ll be back any minute now!”

Ivor looked taken aback for a moment, then his face screwed up again.

“I don’t appreciate your tone, _boy_ ,” Ivor barked, seeming just slightly less rude this time. “But… as long as she’s bringing it... I suppose it wouldn’t kill me to wait a minute longer.”

_Yeah, no kidding._

Awkward silence followed. Jesse tapped his foot, and his annoyance toward Ivor slowly went away.

_Maybe he’s just… having a bad day._

“Umm… so…” Jesse muttered. “Hooow… was your day?”

Ivor gave him a somewhat confused look, but finally just said, “Fine.” He looked away, staring at the wall like it had offended him somehow, then added, “Thank you.”

“Good. Good.” Jesse looked off to the side. Another awkward silence. 

“How about yours?” Ivor asked.

Jesse blinked. “Oh. Uh. Yeah, it was—fine.”

Untrue, but he wouldn’t tell this less than perfect stranger about… or would he?

“Yeah, just fought some zombies earlier with my friends,” he mentioned casually. “Just—y’know, standard… everyday stuff.”

“Ah,” replied Ivor. “Sounds… delightful.”

“Yeah…” Jesse paused. “So… s’that, your chest there?”

“ _That_ is your reward for a job well done…” Ivor said, “… _after_ I get what I came for.”

“Oh.”

 _Okay, but why put it in a chest?_ Jesse wondered.

They lapsed into silence again until finally Jesse heard Petra’s voice call, “Ivor.”

Jesse turned to see her walk in.

_Oh, thank goodness._

“There you are,” Ivor said, “It’s about time! What took you so long? Your partner and I have been waiting for a _full minute_.”

“Sorry I’m late, but, good things are worth waiting for,” she said with a businesslike smile. “I’ve got what you asked for—”

“— _If_ you have what you promised us,” Jesse inserted. Petra gave him a slight disapproving glace, but Jesse disregarded it. Maybe it was what Ivor said earlier, but he didn’t feel right. Something felt…

“You didn’t say anything about an ‘us’ when we first met, and I don’t like surprises.”

“My friend is fine,” she said flatly. “Do you want the skull or not?”

As she said it though, Jesse felt a knot forming in his stomach. It was different from simple nervousness. He was certain of that. She said all of her deals felt off, but… something felt _very_ off to him.

“Proceed, then.” Ivor said with a nod, and what seemed to Jesse like a strangely out of place grin.

As Petra reached into her pocket, Jesse grabbed her arm.

“Heh, Jesse, what are you doing?” she questioned, clearly trying maintain her professional demeanor.

“I don’t know, Petra,” Jesse whispered. “Maybe you should rethink this whole thing. This guy gives me a bad feeling.”

Petra whispered back through grit teeth, “ _I’ll_ give you a bad feeling if you ruin this for me.”

Jesse pulled her back and turned around to be more discreet.

“Jess—”

“Petra, please? Can we just—talk about this for a minute?”

Petra smiled and looked back at Ivor. “We’ll just be one minute.”

She followed him a few paces away and wasted no time. “Jesse, this better be quick.”

“Petra, this guy seems way too secretive to just be a collector.”

“What do you mean?”

“When I mentioned the Wither skull, he said that ‘too many people knew his business already.’ Isn’t that a _little_ strange? I mean, stranger than normal?”

“It’s none of my business, Jesse.”

“You’re doing business with him, so yeah, it kind of is.”

Petra opened her mouth to argue, but didn’t say anything.

“And he said he put our ‘reward’ in that chest over there,” he said, pointing.

Petra looked over at it. “What’s suspicious about a chest?”

Jesse blinked. “Have… people paid you through chests before?”

“Uhh…” she muttered. “No?”

“And he’s just got this… this _vibe_ about him.”

Petra raised an eyebrow. “A _vibe_.”

“Listen, I just… I just have a _really_ bad feeling about this, okay? _Please_ , just reconsider this for a minute.”

Petra’s expression softened.

“Are you sure?”

“Definitely.”

Petra bit her lip, then sighed long and deep, putting a hand to her forehead. “I’m going to regret this. This is going to _murder_ my reputation.”

Jesse smiled, but he dearly hoped this didn’t backfire, or he would be on the naughty list of _two_ scary people.

“All right, Ivor,” Petra announced, turning around. “I guess the deal’s off.”

If it were at all possible, the air around Ivor darkened.

“Excuse me?” he said, his voice laced with fury.

Jesse was suddenly unsure of his own decision, wondering if it would have been better to just give it to him and get the heck out of there, but Petra didn’t even flinch.

“You heard me,” she said, crossing her arms, “Deal’s off. My… better judgment has spoken, and I’ve decided I don’t want to deal with you. Sorry for the inconvenience.”

It seemed in the span of a heartbeat, Ivor’s expression went from enraged, to… casual.

“Is that so?” he said, sounding eerily calm, “Well then…”

Ivor turned around, Jesse assumed to walk away, but Ivor vanished. Like actually _vanished_ , in the blink of an eye he was gone. Before Jesse could even process what was happening he was yanked back from the behind, restrained in a death grip with a sword pressed to his throat.

“Jesse!” Petra gasped, a good five blocks from where he now was.

“I already told you, I don’t like surprises,” Ivor spat, fuming, his voice livid. Then he bellowed, “I especially don’t like those of which turn out to be a _complete_ waste my time! So. New deal. You give me that Wither skull, and I give you your friend.”

Jesse swallowed.

« … »

Be wise in the way you act toward outsiders; make the most of every opportunity.  
Let your conversation be always full of grace, seasoned with salt, so that you may know how to answer everyone.

— Colossians 4:5-6

* * *

#### Author’s Notes

Jesse blinked. “Have… people paid you through chests before?”

“Umm…” Petra muttered. “Maybe it’s a… social distancing thing?”

So, did Jesse fall, or did Petra push him? I guess we’ll never know. >:)

One more quick note. Because of the nature of this game and the story, a lot of these chapters are VERY dialogue heavy, and I try to balance that out as much as possible with actual action, but unfortunately this turned out to be one of those cases in which that was very hard to do, so… it was almost ENTIRELY dialogue. ^^’ Sorry ‘bout that.

\- Time to Strike — The title! Yes, you can expect many more of these title explanations in the future. XD By now the old achievements system in Minecraft is all but dead, but it is for that reason I feel even more compelled to pay homage to it in my novelization. Because to me, MCSM embodies so much of what makes Minecraft so beautiful to me, and I never want to lose that. Suffice it to say, Time to Strike was the name of the achievement in pre 1.12 Minecraft for making your first sword.

\- Jesse’s NEVER crafted anything??? — While something _everyone_ in the game does, of course, Jesse is so surprised when he sees Petra’s crafting table and so excited when she tells him he can craft something that I can’t imagine crafting is a regular activity for him. Or for that matter, anyone in this world. It’s not like it’s so hard, but it’s just not as standard practice as it is in the game. Imagine it being in this world like cooking is in our culture. (America’s, that is) Not a lot of people do it themselves. It’s not unheard of for someone to go their whole lives not crafting.

As for Jesse having never crafted _anything_ , it was either that or that he just doesn’t do it often, but I decided to go with the former simply because it’s more interesting. Also, it’s a great way to have readers learn with the characters rather than just explaining even though they already know. Also also, this way we get to see Jesse actually craft his first thing ever! :3 I still couldn’t help but have Petra tease him about it though. XD

\- We are so through. - ,- — Okay, so even I agree that this is maybe a bit out of character for Petra. XD Why did I put it in then? Well, because this was something we came up with forever ago, and the original version of it was THE very first thing my little brother ever wrote (creatively, of course). For those reasons, I just didn’t have the heart to take it out _completely_. Also this way, even if I end up cutting it out later, it will at least live on as that funny little deleted bit and won’t have died on my hard drive without ever having seen the light of day. ^^

\- Where’d the bridge scene go? — With neither build winning in my version, there was no rainbow beacon or fireworks in the distance to facilitate that conversation on the bridge, so sadly it had to go. :’( Boo hoo. Let’s face it though, the only reason it was in there to begin with was just because it’s cool anyway. XP That works for a video game, but in a novel, attention spans are more limited, so you gotta keep things moving, y’know? ;)

\- “Maybe he’s late.” — I always thought it was kind of weird that as soon as they walk into the alleyway, Petra’s like ‘oh he’s not immediately here, so I guess I better run off to look for him.’ I mean, that’s not a ‘problem’ per se, but FIXED I guess. XD

\- “Perhaps we should call the whole thing off.” — It never made sense to me why, during this exchange, Ivor threatens _twice_ to just leave without making the deal. This would make some sense if he was trying to get a better deal, or if he really was okay with not getting it at all, but neither of those things are the case. Ivor doesn’t care about getting a better deal because he plans on ripping her off, and he’s on a VERY tight deadline for something he cares IMMENSELY about. Like, dude, really? Why are you testing the waters on this? :/ What did you plan on doing if she took you up on that and called the deal off? Oh, wait, I just wrote about that. XD

#### Choice Notes

Yeah, none of the choices in this chapter really needed any explaining. :)

#### Glossary

\- Hand Crafting — Not an official title, but this is just what we took to calling the crafting in Minecraft that you can do without a crafting table. There aren’t many recipes like this, just a few simple things. Like the aforementioned sheers, and the famous crafting table itself. :)

Note: _I am aware of the fact that ‘handcrafting’ is a word. I’m using it to distinguish because ‘hand crafting’ is way different than regular handcrafting._


	10. Chapter IX – Ender-Conned

#### Foreword

Here we go! The next chapter! It was very important to me that this one had a lot of attention, so I made sure to give it that attention. ^^

Enjoy!

* * *

Chapter IX

#### Ender-Conned

««««« … »»»»»

“Y’know, now that you mention it…” Jesse quivered with a nervous chuckle and a sword inches from his throat. “My day isn’t going very good at all.”

“Hey!” Petra yelled at his captor. “Leave him out of this! This is between you, and me!”

She looked angry, but also shocked and afraid. He’d never seen her look that scared. He’d never seen her scared at _all_. Even when they had charged into a burning building together, she hadn’t betrayed the slightest sign of fear.

Strangely… it emboldened him.

At that point, something inside of Jesse seemed to settle. He wasn’t suddenly fearless, but he found that instead of shaking in terror, he was scowling in indignation.

He was being ransomed? Like, actually used as leverage?

 _Oh, that’s **so** uncool!_

Maybe it was adrenaline, some untimely desire to look tough, or just his ego stupidly thinking that this guy wasn’t so tough—he could take him. Whatever the case, Jesse didn’t feel so scared. Still, he listened to his instinct not to move.

And as the reality of what was really happening slowly caught up to him, he actually found it easier to relax. He was being threatened at sword point over a stupid black skull. Either this man was an insane negotiator, or he was just insanely impatient. Either way he was insane, but was he serious? Or was he just bluffing? Jesse wasn’t about to test fate on which one was the case. Neither was Petra it seemed.

“Well then?” questioned Ivor. “What will it be? Neither one of us has all night.”

“Okay!” she conceded. “Okay, take it! Just leave him alone!”

She pulled out the skull and threw it on the ground at Jesse’s feet.

“Ah-ha!” Ivor exclaimed. “That’s what I thought.”

Jesse hit his knees as Ivor shoved him forward, snatching up the skull. And just like that he was gone, the Wither skull gone with him.

As soon as he was free, Jesse had to take a deep breath. Even miraculously not freaking out, he was still a bit shaken up and had to recover from his _second_ life threatening situation that night.

“Hey!” Petra shot into action, dashing after Ivor.

Worry leaped back into focus and Jesse’s instincts kicked in. Right as Petra brushed by him he grabbed her by the arm.

“Petra, wait!” he exclaimed.

Petra turned back at him, a look of righteous fury on her face. “What are you doing? That jerk just tried to kill you!”

“And you want to go after him?” argued Jesse. “He’s a crazy old man with a sword. Do you really think chasing him down is a good idea? What are you going to do when you find him? Make him apologize?”

Petra gave him a look but then relaxed and sighed. He could tell she knew he was right, and while only by a string, she agreed.

“Look,” he reasoned, “the chest is right there. Let’s just get what we came for and go.”

“Fine,” she grumbled.

Together, they knelt down and opened the chest behind them, and laying there in the middle was a big, shiny, blue…

Jesse blinked. “Uh, this isn’t a diamond.”

It _was_ pretty, but the much deeper blue-lopsided-chunk was clearly not a diamond, but rather a piece of lapis.

Petra seethed, and he could tell the frail resolve she made a moment ago was already fizzling.

“That—slime!” she fumed. “He planned to cheat us from the very beginning!”

This was skulduggery if he’d ever seen it. Hah. _Skull_ -dugger—euh, never mind.

“Hey, lapis isn’t so bad,” offered Jesse, attempting to appease whatever peace-seeking side of her might still be in there. “You _did_ want something decorative for your cavehouse.”

Petra snapped. “Screw THAT! He is NOT getting away with this.”

Well, it was worth a shot.

Petra spun around, leaping into a sprint.

“Wait!” Jesse shouted as he grabbed the blue chunk from the chest and shoved it into his pocket—lapis wasn’t a diamond, but it wasn’t nothing—then, getting to his feet, dashed after her. “I’m coming with you!”

If she had to go, Jesse didn’t want her to go alone to face a dangerous madman.

Petra looked back, and stopped as he rushed to catch up.

“I dunno, Jesse,” she said, “I think you should let me handle this. I don’t want you to get hurt because I got you involved.”

Jesse didn’t want to tell Petra, the awesome warrior girl whom some called a mercenary, that he was worried for her safety. Somehow he thought that would sound demeaning _and_ arrogant, and she wouldn’t put up with that.

“Psh, please,” Jesse waved a dismissive hand at her. “I’ve fought zombies, spiders, _and_ creepers every night since I made my first stone sword.”

Petra raised an eyebrow like that was the stupidest thing she’d ever heard, but she couldn’t argue. “That… is technically true.”

To be fair, it was probably the stupidest thing he’d ever said.

“Besides, I don’t want to let you have all the fun.”

Petra didn’t look annoyed. In fact, she gave him what he thought to be a proud, perhaps impressed smile.

“Poster Boy,” she said, “you may be the biggest dork in the Overworld, but you are _not_ a loser.”

Jesse grinned and Petra nodded, taking off again toward EnderCon. Jesse fell in step beside her and she craned her head to look at him.

“I’m either getting that diamond, or I’m getting my skull back. And he’s going to pay for what he did to you. Come on! Let’s find this guy and show him what happens when you _dare_ to mess with me.”

“Yeah!” Jesse enthusiastically agreed. “Uh—and—what is that exactly?”

Petra’s expression went from burning with anger to slightly confused. “I… don’t know. No one’s ever dared to mess with me.”

“Oh. That’s fair.”

As they ran, Jesse was honestly shocked at how… not terrified he was at the prospect of tracking that slimeball down. His heart was pumping fast, but he felt less afraid and more… _cool_.

A smile spread across Jesse’s face as a thrilling feeling coursed through him. He knew he should be leery. He should insist that she forget about it and move on, but she probably wouldn’t listen to him anyway, and… he couldn’t help it if he was a _little_ excited, right?

« … »

“Okay, so it wasn’t _entirely_ an accident,” Aiden said, brushing the question aside like he might brush crumbs of bread off his lap. “I knew there was lava, and I knew the block would break, and—okay, maybe I kinda wanted to watch that build burn…” Aiden paused to give a chuckle. “I just wasn’t really thinking, I guess.”

The question of ‘how the flip did one go about _accidentally_ breaking a block of stone with lava behind it?’ seemed as trivial to Aiden as what he might have for breakfast. The topic of actually losing the competition on the other hand, he seemed to think was of equal importance to the end of the world. The fact that the two were practically one in the same was lost on him.

“Uhh-huh,” Lukas muttered, Aiden didn’t seem to notice the lack of disbelief in his tone. Truthfully, Lukas wasn’t surprised in the least. Aiden wasn’t always the smartest, but he wasn’t stupid. Lukas knew him well enough by now to know that when he did stupid things, it was never an ‘accident’.

“And if it weren’t for those snitches,” Aiden crossed his arms and sneered, “we wouldn’t have been caught.”

 _Caught?_

Lukas couldn’t muster a response to that.

He bit his lip. Just the idea of being involved in something worthy of being ‘caught’ doing made him feel guilty. He _hated_ that feeling. It was such a nagging, shameful one, even with the truth being out out in the open.

 _I didn’t do anything wrong,_ he told himself, but he felt like he was lying to himself. Like he was _betraying_ himself. He felt terrible… but he wasn’t about to tell Aiden about it. He wouldn’t understand.

Before he could think of anything to say, Aiden looked indignant and grumbled. “Oh _great_. It’s Bandana Girl.”

Sure enough, once Lukas looked up he saw Petra walk out a few paces ahead of them. She did so with a hostile posture and a look in her eyes that suggested she was out for blood.

She turned, and once Petra met his eyes she marched right up to him without a hint of hesitation in her stride. If he didn’t know any better, he’d think she was mad at _him_. It was unlikely though, as he found most of the time she looked like that, it was to ward off anyone she didn’t want to deal with. However this time, she _did_ look a lot more aggressive than usual.

“Lukas, I need to talk to you,” she stated flatly, crossing her arms and apparently cutting straight to the chase.

Lukas tensed. _Was_ she mad at him? He couldn’t fathom why, if she was. He hadn’t even seen her all day.

“Hey,” Aiden scoffed, “can’t you see we’re trying to have a conversation?”

Petra spared him an impatient glance, her already short temper getting visibly shorter. Her level tone contrasted her incensed air in a way that was almost scary. “Aiden, why don’t you make yourself useful and go do _anything_ else.”

Aiden didn’t get the hint. He wasn’t stupid, but he could still be a little dense. “Pft—You’re not the boss of me!”

Petra didn’t say anything, just slowly turned her head to glare at Aiden.

Aiden flinched, looking suddenly stunned, and finally seeming to get the idea that he shouldn’t try her patience right now.

“Okay, okay. I’ll go,” Aiden huffed, reclaiming his scowl and storming off.

Aiden had never liked Petra, but he was just going to have to deal with it. Lukas wasn’t going to let Aiden dictate who he was friends with any more than he would let Petra herself.

“Sorry about that, Lukas,” said Petra.

“It’s fine,” he replied, turning back to her. “I’m not exactly thrilled with Aiden right now anyway. What’s up?”

Her answer was concise, and quiet. “I just got scammed.”

He blinked in surprise. “What?”

“Long story short,” Petra continued, “some guy offered me a diamond for a Wither skull, and he took it and ran without paying up.”

“You let him get away with it?”

Petra glowered at him.

 _Oops. Wrong question._

“ _No_ Lukas, I didn’t LET him get away with it. And I’m not _going_ to either.” She gave a flustered sigh. “Can you help?”

He shrugged. “Sure. What do you need?”

“Just keep an eye out for him. He’s wearing old looking robes, has black hair, a beard, and he’s real scruffy looking.”

“Robed. Black beard. Scruffy. Got it.”

Petra smiled for the first time. “Great. Thanks Lukas.”

He smiled back. “Not a problem.”

Petra started to walk off but not a moment later she spun on her heel.

“Ohh, one more thing,” she said, walking back up to him.

“Yeah?”

“Have you seen Jesse yet?”

“Nah,” Lukas said, then he perked up. “Is he here? Did he see the winning build? Oh, I wish I could see his face when he looks at that thing.” Lukas laughed, then clenched his fists as the burning rage toward that monstrosity threatened to resurface and he glared at the floor. “Ooohh, that _thing_ …”

“ _Good_ ,” she said, sounding relieved. “So, _if_ Jesse comes by and talks to you, just… try to play nice, okay?”

“Ooo…kay,” he said, forcing a casual chuckle. “Is there anything I should avoid saying?”

It was a rhetorical question, but Petra looked thoughtful for a moment and then said, “‘Better luck next year’. Don’t say that.”

Lukas, confused, said, “Uhh… why?”

“Just… play nice.”

“Don’t I always?” he asked sarcastically.

“Yeah, none of that.”

Lukas blinked. Did nothing please her?

“Oookay…” he said again, trying to mask his mild frustration.

It wasn’t like he didn’t want to get along with them, but why did ‘playing nice’ fall into his court? Didn’t he always play nice? Wasn’t _Jesse_ the one with the grudge against him even though he never did anything to him?

“Why are you putting this on _me_?” he found himself asking. “You know I don’t hate the guy, but he’s the one who wants to turn everything into a battle.”

“Because, Lukas,” Petra said, her impatient demeanor returning. “I don’t know if you know this, but your ‘friends’ kinda suck. This isn’t all about _you_ y’know.”

Oh, was _that_ it?

Lukas didn’t understand why it was so hard for Jesse to separate him from his friends. It wasn’t like every time Axel made a snide remark about him, he held that against Jesse.

“I don’t see why my choice of friends is any of his business.”

“ _You’re_ not his business. Your _friends_ are his business, and your friends _are_ your business.”

Lukas blinked. “What?”

“Look, I don’t have time to discuss what’s your business and what’s Jesse’s business, because I have my own business and it’s none of my business, but you and Jesse _are_ my business, and what’s yours and his business is not mine.”

Lukas blinked several times. “Whaaaaat?”

“Ugh!” she huffed. “Why can’t you just get some better friends?!”

Why was she so persistent in this? He didn’t march around micromanaging who she could hang out with. Why couldn’t she just _not_ do the same?

Lukas frowned, but kept his tone level.

“Petra, we’ve been over this. They’re not the best people. So what? Everyone deserves a good friend. Even bad ones. It’s not like I’m a bad influence, and I’m not going to ditch them just because my ‘competition’ doesn’t like me because of—”

“Okay, okay,” Petra said, in lieu of a ‘shut up I don’t care’. “Look, sorry, but I really don’t have time for that right now. Can you please just—do this one thing for me?”

 _Two_ things.

Lukas reserved a sigh, and tried to smile.

“Heh. Yeah, sure, of course.” He paused and dared to ask, “What… do you want me to say?”

“Just _talk_ ,” she said. “You’re good at talking. He’s not a creeper, he’s not going to explode if you get too close. The best advice I can give you is to put a lid on the sarcastic wit.”

Lukas smiled wryly, opening his mouth to say something sarcastic and witty… but thought better of it.

“Okay,” he finally said simply.

She nodded. “Good boy.”

As soon as she was out of earshot, Lukas sighed and leaned up against the nearest wall, not so eagerly awaiting this possible conversation. Lukas was not the type to avoid conversation, but he found himself wondering, _maybe_ …

 _Maybe…_ he thought. _Jesse **won’t** talk to me. Maybe he just won’t see me._

« … »

 _Maybe I just won’t see him,_ Jesse hoped. _**Maybe** he went home._

Jesse and Petra had split up to look for Ivor, but Jesse couldn’t get what Petra said to him before the deal went wrong out of his head. She wanted him to talk to Lukas. Of _all_ people.

 _Or **maybe** he won’t want to talk to me, and then I can just say ‘I tried, but go figure, he’s a jerk who’s too good to talk to a loser’. That would be awesome._

It was dumb, he knew that, but he couldn’t help it if he wasn’t looking forward to having a conversation with his number one least favorite person. Okay, number four. But still, he made the top five, and that was saying something. Number five was Ivor. He ranked better than Lukas right now, because at least he made him feel cool.

 _Maybe he was so embarrassed by the winning build that he’s rolling around in the mud somewh—_

He spotted Lukas leaning against one of the buildings nearest to him.

 _Oh come on!_

Jesse sighed, but right as he was about to relinquish himself to his fate, he stopped as something occurred to him.

 _Wait a minute,_ he thought as a glimmer of hope stirred to life in him. _I’ve just been through a life threatening experience!_

He was—in shock! _Traumatized_ even! Petra wouldn’t _still_ be expecting him to go and talk to Lukas after _everything_ he’d just been through, _especially_ since he was helping her look for Ivor. Surely that qualified as a good reason to not talk to someone.

Jesse smiled and happily turned around and walked the other way, delighting in his perfect excuse.

Relishing his antisocialness, he looked for the next person he wasn’t obligated to talk to, but actually wanted to.

He found Olivia by a booth selling books, and she was holding, well, a book. She looked distressed, and as soon as she noticed him she closed the gap between them.

“Jesse! I looked up quincunx!” she said, holding up a dictionary and waving it in his face.

Jesse raised an eyebrow. “What?”

“Look!”

She shoved the dictionary at him and grabbed his hand to point somewhere on the page as she read, “‘Five blocks in a cross, or a pattern of five points arranged in a square with one point at the intersection between them.’”

Whatever significance that was clearly supposed to hold was lost on him. Jesse stared at the page and scratched his head.

“Umm… okay…” he muttered. “So?”

“It means _five_!”

Jesse was starting to feel denser by the minute and glanced back and forth between her and nothing in particular before asking again, “…Sssooo?”

She gaped at him in incredulously. “We’re _three_ people!”

Was that what she was flipping out about? The fact that their team name ‘The Quincunx Stars’ wasn’t absolutely perfect? Even though the contest was over, and they would probably never even need one ever again?

Well, why _that_ mattered at all he didn’t know, but regardless, she was wrong.

“That’s not true,” he argued. “We have Reuben.”

Olivia gave him a look of disbelief and blinked at him before repeating, “It means _five_!”

“Okay then,” he said, “the middle point is… the common ground that—unites us all together.”

Olivia blinked and raised her brow at him disapprovingly.

“Oh, whatever Olivia!” He finally gave up. “It’s a cool name. No one else is even going to look it up, so no one will ever even know.”

Olivia sighed. “Okaaay… if you say so, Jesse.”

Jesse gave her back her dictionary and resisted the urge to roll his eyes.

“Um, hey, speaking of that fourth person…” he said, “have you seen Reuben?”

Olivia looked downhearted. “No…”

 _That’s okay,_ he told himself. _He’ll turn up. He’s fine._

“Okay, well, keep your eyes peeled.”

Olivia lethargically saluted. “Eye eye.”

Then he walked out into EnderCon again, in search of their elusive thief. 

“Okay, ya creeper,” he thought out loud. “Where are y—”

Lukas walked out about ten blocks in front of him, passing him by.

Jesse’s conscience nagged him, and he bit his lip.

He knew he wasn’t really still in shock, and he knew Petra knew that. 

But then he realized something.

He was supposed to be looking for Ivor. _That_ was supposed to be his top priority, not _talking_ to people. Especially _lame_ people. He should be looking for Ivor. That’s what he should be doing. Yeah. Definitely. Petra would understand. Lukas could wait.

« … »

After running into several dead ends, Jesse spotted Lukas… again.

 _Hey, that mask booth has some pretty cool masks!_

So he went to the mask booth and asked the owner if they’d seen someone with Ivor’s description.

No luck.

He spotted Lukas again, this time by a different booth.

 _Hey, that pumpkin pie stand has free samples!_

And off he went. No luck there either.

He saw him again, and It was practically instinct at this point. Turn around. Walk away. Don’t look back.

Jesse quickly turned around, less quickly started to walk away, but then slowed to a stop. Then he wilted.

What was he doing? Why was he procrastinating on this? Why was he more eager to find the guy who’d just threatened to kill him than talk to a guy who he little more than saw once a year for a ‘friendly competition’? He kept trying to reason things out, to figure out the next way to put it off until tomorrow, but…

No, no matter how he tried to justify it, he wouldn’t feel right. He could have all the perfect excuses in the world and it wouldn’t matter if at the end of the day he actually didn’t do it. Not when he knew full well that they really were just excuses.

Jesse had been hoping that after beating the Ocelots, things would finally even out. Axel and Olivia would finally feel like winners, Aiden and his derp friends wouldn’t mess with them again, and he would never have to deal with Lukas.

Since they weren’t even going to be able to beat them for another year though, he supposed it was about time he did something about this.

However, before he did, he decided one thing: He wasn’t doing this for Petra.

Not because he didn’t want to do it for her, but he didn’t want that to be the only reason. He had no pride about making up his own mind or doing things on his terms, but if he was going to give Lukas a chance he didn’t want to do so out of obligation. He wanted to do it out of a genuine hope that he had misjudged him, and give him an opening to maybe make things right.

It was still hard to muster the goodwill to think of it like that, though. Jesse heaved a deep sigh.

 _I’m giving him a fair chance. I’m just giving him a fair chance._

Jesse looked back. He steeled his nerves, and with the most nonchalant disposition he could manage, he approached Lukas.

Lukas took notice of him and Jesse crossed his arms.

“‘Sup?” said Jesse.

“‘Sup?” said Lukas.

“Nothing,” said Jesse, “‘sup with you?”

“Nothing,” said Lukas. “‘Sup with you?”

Jesse frowned. “I just said. Nothing.”

There was a moment of awkward silence between them as Jesse regretted not preparing something to say. All that boondoggling and coming up with excuses, and none of them were an explanation for why he _would_ be talking to him.

Jesse tried to think of something to say, but he was surprised when it was actually Lukas who spoke up first.

“I’m sorry you guys didn’t win this year,” he said, a contemplative… almost sad look on his face. Jesse perked, and gave him a curious eye and all his attention as he went on. “It was looking pretty cool before it—y’know, burned down or—whatever.”

“Eh…” Jesse drawled, still reluctant, but otherwise resolute. “It’s… not your fault.”

The words tasted like charcoal on his tongue.

“Thanks for being so cool about it,” Lukas said with a smile.

Jesse swallowed his pride and said, “Your beacon wasn’t too shabby.”

“You don’t have to do that, okay?” Lukas said much to Jesse’s surprise, waving a dismissive hand. “You guys have been trying to win against us for years, and I honestly thought for a minute there that you were going to, and… it’s not fair you had to deal with Aiden being an _idiot_.”

Lukas met Jesse’s eyes with an intense sort of look that gave the impression he meant every word he spoke.

“Man, what he did _wasn’t_ cool,” Lukas went on, pausing to cross his arms. “I know that.”

Jesse blinked. He was… he was amazed.

 _Who are you and where’s the real Lukas?_ he wanted to ask.

Lukas frowned and looked indignant, but not at him, just in general. Jesse could hardly blame him, and even couldn’t help feeling a _bit_ bad for him.

“Sorry you got disqualified for Aiden being an idiot,” Jesse found himself saying. “You…” he sighed, “probably would have won anyway.”

“Hey, you don’t know that,” Lukas interjected. “You guys did a really good job, too. I thought the whole monsters theme was—well… it was cool.”

 _What is this guy’s deal?_ Jesse wondered, raising an eyebrow. _He **looks** like a jerk. He doesn’t **act** like a jerk. His **friends** are jerks. He’s got awesome hair. ___

 _ _  
__

“And fireworks, too?” Lukas went on, “I mean I still think our beacon was _amazing_ and it _should_ have won—” he cut himself off and bashfully rubbed the back of his head, “—if yours wasn’t going to, that is… I mean—”

Lukas stopped, his abashed expression turning sour in only a moment. “The build that won didn’t deserve it.”

Jesse… understood. He actually understood _perfectly_. Even Jesse’s team felt embarrassed about losing to a chicken coop, he could only imagine how humiliating it would be for the team with the nine year streak. Especially since they were disqualified.

“I know,” Jesse agreed.

Lukas’ eyes seemed fixed on the ground as he grumbled, “I would’ve way rather lost to _you_ than that—sorry excuse for a—!”

Lukas took a deep breath and Jesse stared at him in astonishment. This was not the way he had expected this conversation to start. It was actually… better.

“Anyway,” Lukas said, smiling again and extending a hand. “Nice buildin’ with you.”

Jesse… smiled back, and shook his hand. 

Maybe this wouldn’t be so—

“Um, if I might suggest something?”

Jesse raised an eyebrow, “What?”

“Try building with stone. It might not look as good as wood, but it’s stronger and… fire resistant.”

 _You’re stone,_ Jesse thought. “I’ll keep that in mind.”

He wanted to be more annoyed, but he was actually in a pretty good mood right now and didn’t want to ruin it.

“Hey, cool team name by the way,” complimented Lukas.

“Thanks,” Jesse replied, barely knowing how. He was still getting used to ‘nice’ Lukas.

“You _do_ realize quincunx means five though, right?”

Jesse, annoyed, grumbled, “Yes.”

“Well for what it’s worth, I like your team name a lot more than the winner’s…”

Jesse smiled.

“…Even if you are only three people.”

Jesse frowned.

 _Lukas, I’m trying really hard to like you right now…_

“Four,” Jesse insisted. “We’re four people.”

Lukas nodded impishly. “Riiight…” he said. “ _That_ wrong number.”

He was _almost_ cool there for a second.

Still, that aside… Jesse was too curious.

“Uh… what— _was_ the winning team’s name?”

“I’ll give you a hint,” Lukas said in a faux sing-song manner. “It’s just as lame as their build.”

“Oh no…” Jesse moaned. “Okay, lay it on me.”

“‘GetPwnedNoobs’.”

Jesse blinked. “What.”

“Yeah,” said Lukas.

“WHAT?”

“Yeah!”

Jesse’s fury reawakened at that moment. “That’s so STUPID!”

“I know, right?!” Lukas agreed, looking just as incensed.

“What kind of stupid—WHY?!”

“RIGHT?!”

“If they were going to let that guy win, they should have just disqualified everyone and canceled EnderCon!”

“Or just make Gabriel the winner and he can meet himself.”

Jesse had to bury his face in his hands to keep his brain from exploding. “Ugh, so STUPID!”

“I know!”

Huh. That was one more thing they could agree on.

“Well, I should probably be going. I’m kind of on an important mission.”

He wasn’t sure why he felt the need to add that.

“Oh, hey,” he suddenly remembered, “you haven’t happened to see Reuben roaming around anywhere, have you?”

Lukas looked curious. “You… couldn’t find him?”

“I found him and I told him to come here, but…” Jesse drooped, “I haven’t seen him yet.”

“I’m sorry. I hope you find him soon. I’ll keep an eye out, okay?” Lukas gave a sympathetic smile.

Jesse smiled back. “Thanks. I appreciate it.”

As Jesse turned to walk away, feeling good in spite of everything, Lukas called back out to him, “Hey, um, Jesse?”

Jesse turned back around. “Yeah?”

Lukas looked almost like a little kid as he averted his eyes and timidly muttered, “…So, uh… are we… cool?”

That _was_ the question, wasn’t it?

Jesse gave a faint sigh and smiled back at him. “Yeah, we’re cool.”

Lukas smiled. “Cool. Cool.”

Jesse thought for a moment. “Cool beans.”

“Coolness,” Lukas replied.

“Coolio,” said Jesse

“Cool-o-rama.”

‘Cool’ was starting to sound less and less like a real word.

“Ha!” Jesse laughed. “See ya later, Lukas.”

Lukas smiled back and said, “Yeah, see ya.”

Jesse was a little more than pleasantly surprised at the realization that that must have been the first time in his life that he’d parted on good terms with Lukas… and Jesse couldn’t help but wonder if it wouldn’t be the last.

 _  
___  


« … »

Therefore, to him who knows to do good and does not do it, to him it is sin.

— James 4:17

* * *

__

#### Author’s Notes

__

_Jesse searched everywhere, from booth to booth high and low, and no matter where he checked it seemed there was no place in this whole convention that Lukas wasn’t conveniently in sight._

First, I realize that them going after Ivor after he just tried to kill Jesse might seem a bit dumb. Hopefully my reasoning for why covers it all right, but I might just have to come back and fix this later anyway. XD Just for your info! Didn’t want you to think I was fixing problems just so I could add more. ;) As always, if you have your own ideas for how to make things better, feel free to message me! (You can find links to where on my profile) I might not add them right away, if at all, but I’m writing for this story because I love it and I want it to be the best it can be. ^^ As such, I am excited at the prospect of going over it in the future for a second draft, and I would love to have your ideas in case I ever do! I am a firm believer in scrapping stuff, even big stuff, to make way for things that will improve the story. :)

\- Or you’ll make him pay, right? Right? :D — Not a choice exactly, but this was another one of those instances in the game of Jesse acting like a fan boy, and inexplicably excited to rush out into danger, even though he can be a bit of a ‘wimp’ at times. Granted in the canon, Ivor wasn’t established as being ‘dangerous’ per se, but even if you make all the ‘cool Jesse’ choices, Jesse acting like this still seems out of character to me. Suffice it to say, that’s even more the case with my version since… he is established as being dangerous. So while it does makes sense for Petra to charge into this, I needed a reason for Jesse to. I hope this works for you. :)

#### Choice Notes

It didn’t actually have many, so again, there aren’t many choice notes. XD

\- ‘Sup? — As you can see, I did a lot to Jesse and Lukas’ first conversation here, because I was mainly following my heart on it. I won’t go deep into why, but let’s just say this conversation is very important to me personally, as well as crucial to the rest of the story, as it sets the stage for a lot of internal processes. I’ll leave it at that, though. ^^

#### Glossary

\- Charcoal — I mean, charcoal is charcoal…

\- Pumpkin Pie — Yeah, it exists. It’s delicious.


	11. Chapter X – How We Play the Game

#### Foreword

Agh! So it seems I spaced on posting Friday again. >.< So sorry about that! Here it is now, and I'll see you again this Friday. :D

Enjoy!

* * *

Chapter X

#### How We Play the Game

««««« … »»»»»

“You want _my_ help?” asked Olivia, sounding surprised.

“Yeah,” Petra replied, “I figured we had one conversation, so we’re like, super-close now, right?”

Olivia laughed. “Well, can’t argue with Jesse logic. Sure, I’ll keep my eyes peeled.”

“Thanks Olivia,” Petra said, and with that and a smile, she immediately set out to look for the next person she wanted to enlist to her cause. No sooner than she did, Petra spotted Axel over by the—

Oh, it was _actually_ a cake booth.

Axel noticed her before she got there and quickly turned away to wipe the frosting off his face before turning back to her with a smile.

“Hey Petra,” he said. “To what do I owe the honors?”

“Axel, I need your help.”

“You need my—?” he cut himself off, sounding excited. “Oh, yeah, sure. I’ll help. Anything for—pfft—I mean, yeah. I’ll help.”

Axel crossed his arms and seemed to feign indifference. Petra raised an eyebrow.

_I don’t—I’m not gonna ask._

“Okay, listen up,” she said, “‘cause I’ve repeated this story two times already, and I’m not making it four. Jesse and I were making a deal with this guy named Ivor, and it backfired _bad_.”

Axel looked confused. “Meaning?”

“Meaning the psycho not only cheated me out of my _very_ hard earned payment, but he threatened Jesse with a sword to his throat, and I’m going to get _payback_.”

Axel’s blank stare turned livid in a mere second. “He did _what_?!”

“I already have Jesse, Olivia, and Lukas looking for him. You in?”

His livid expression then turned uncertain. “Uh… Lukas?”

Petra frowned. She didn’t have the patience to entertain the Quincunx trio’s biases, and she didn’t have the obligation to either. So rather shortly, she crossed her own arms and questioned rhetorically, “You got a problem with that?”

“I mean…” Axel drawled, rubbing the back of his head. “No. No problem.”

“Good. Look for a creepy guy with a green robe, long, messy black hair, and a beard. Thanks, Axel.”

Petra started off, but Axel spoke up again. “Hey, uh… Petra?”

She stopped, looking back.

“Yeah?”

“Do you… like cookies?”

Petra blinked. “Umm… Yeah. Who doesn’t?”

“Right?” said Axel. “They’re like, the best thing ever. I mean maybe with the exception of cake…”

Axel went on about cookies, but as he did, Petra thought she noticed someone with a green robe slip through the crowd. “But yeah, I was getting cookies for me and my friends, and… I got five, so… if you wanted one—”

“Sorry. No time,” she cut in, not taking her eyes off of the spot he disappeared to. “Later, okay?”

“Oh, uh, okay. But if you change your mind—”

Petra couldn’t waste any more time and took off before she could lose him.

« … »

Jesse had tried talking to the Deejay, but somehow it had come across like a bad pickup line and now she was mad at him. Then he accidentally grabbed someone he _thought_ looked just like Ivor, but who turned out to just be a strangely dressed—and touchy—woman.

She had been wearing the same green robe and had the same messy long black hair. It shouldn’t be possible to look that much like someone else.

Over the noise of people, Jesse thought he heard a faint and all too familiar ‘oink!’

He stopped.

“Reuben?”

Jesse listened again, but couldn’t hear him. Had he imagined it?

He looked around but didn’t see any sign of—

“There he is!” Jesse heard someone shout at the exact same moment he noticed his hero, Gabriel the Warrior, walk out from the crowd not ten blocks in front of him. For a second, for _one_ second, Gabriel turned his head and met his eyes.

Jesse stared. It was like time had stopped. Buuut, it hadn’t, because only a moment later, he was plowed to the ground. The girl didn’t apologize, just got up and bolted off again. He just was _not_ having luck with girls today. That sounded bad, too. Even his _thoughts_ sounded bad.

“Gabriel! Gabriel!!!” she shouted.

Jesse peeled his face off of the ground just in time to see a crowd form around the celebrity. He watched as the ushers around Gabriel shooed people away and Jesse sighed, pushing himself to his feet.

He was right there. _Right_ there. In their town, walking the same streets Jesse walked every other day just to buy food. And all thanks to those creeping Ocelots, Jesse would never get to meet him.

“Gabriel looked at me! He actually looked at me! ME!” it was the same girl who plowed him over. “Wow…” she swooned.

Jesse immediately wilted, caught between feeling dumb for just thinking the same thing, and feeling dumb for wistfully wishing that one day… someone might think that highly of _him_.

Jesse found Axel before he could find where the oink had come from. If it had come from anywhere. Jesse couldn’t help but wonder if he was just hearing things.

Axel was standing by… wait… was that the winning build?

Why was that over here all of a sudden? Perhaps more importantly, why was Axel looking at it?

“Thought you could just wiggle right out of that trap, didn’t you?” Axel taunted one of the chickens. “Well—wiggle as much as you want, you’re not goin’ anywhere.”

“Axel, what are you doing looking at that—that—abomination?” Jesse asked indignantly.

Axel flinched and turned to Jesse. “Huh? What? Oh—nothing. I was just looking at how… undeserving it is.”

Jesse decided to give Axel the benefit of feigning stupidity.

“Okay, I believe you,” he lied. “Axel, any chance you’ve seen a creepy-looking beard-y guy anywhere?”

“No. Petra told me what happened. I’m keeping an eye out for him.”

Axel smiled, looking proud of himself, but Jesse just looked past him at the chicken machine. He looked back at Axel, mounting his hands to his hips and giving him a quizzical eye.

“Okay, so I got a little distracted,” admitted Axel.

“I knew it! Axel, how could you?” Jesse accused indignantly. “You traitor.”

“It’s just this machine presses all my buttons—” he explained, “unnecessarily complicated, and mean to birds for no reason…”

Jesse narrowed his eyes at him. “Don’t look at it.”

“Okay.”

For some reason, that had felt almost anticlimactic.

Jesse looked around again, then back to Axel. “Hey, have you seen Reuben? I thought I heard him earlier, but I couldn’t find him.”

“Haven’t seen hide nor hair,” Axel shrugged. “But I’m sure he’s fine. He’s a tough little ham.”

A chicken clucked loudly, and Axel turned back around.

“Axel?” Jesse said in a scolding tone.

“Right, right! I’m all ears—er—eyes,” Axel babbled.

Jesse rolled his eyes.

“No more looking at chickens. Look for humans with messy beards. And pigs.”

“Got it!” Axel saluted.

Jesse gave a nod. Then, right as he turned around, he noticed again the same little ‘oink’.

He _definitely_ heard Reuben _that_ time.

« … »

Pushing her way through the crowd, Petra looked around. Again, she barely managed to catch a glimpse of the suspect walk around the corner, and followed as fast as she could. As soon as she turned the corner, she spotted the green robed man standing right there, facing away from her.

_Why would he just be standing there?_

Petra tapped him on the shoulder and… ‘he’ was actually ‘she’, and _she_ looked incredibly annoyed.

Huh. From the back, this irritated lady had looked just exactly like Ivor.

“What _now_?” she grumbled.

“Oh. Sorry,” said Petra, “you looked like someone else.”

The woman rolled her eyes with a sigh. “So I’ve heard.”

Petra watched her walked off indignantly, raising an eyebrow and heaving a sigh of her own. That meant she was back to block one…

Before she could even dwell on that, Petra saw him.

It wasn’t the same lady. Walking past the gate to the bridge going into the keynote, Ivor looked back just long enough to give her a good look at his face… and _that beard_.

It was _him_.

“Ha,” she chuckled under her breath with a smirk, “I see you now, Ivor. You just keep walking. I’ll catch up soon.”

But first, she had to gather her makeshift team.

A new game was on, and they were going to play it right.

« … »

Jesse’s heart was beating fast in his nervous hustle. He looked back and forth, trying as hard as possible to be thorough despite being frazzled. He wanted to find him, but he didn’t want to miss him in a hurried frenzy.

He was just about to call out for him when out of nowhere, who should jump up in his face, but Aiden. His _actual_ , number one. Least. Favorite. Person. EVER.

“Weeell, if it isn’t the spherehead!” Aiden said, an insult he’d heard all too many times before. “D’you see the winning build? Shame we got disqualified, but at least it was still better than _yours_.”

Jesse tried to go around him, but Aiden just got in the way again.

“Kinda busy right now, man,” Jesse muttered through clenched teeth, trying to keep his cool.

“What? Busy trying to get a life? Busy trying to find some friends?”

_Says **you** ,_ thought Jesse… though technically, he was right.

“Aiden, I really don’t have ti—”

“How’s your stupid pig? I hear intense heat causes brain damage.”

Jesse seethed. That comment, added to his haste, added to everything else that had been stacking up in his mind, and something in him _snapped_.

It was because of _him_ that Reuben had gotten lost in the first place. It was because of _him_ that they lost that competition and might never get another chance to meet Gabriel the Warrior. And now, Reuben was possibly in danger, and Jesse couldn’t even get past Aiden’s sorry butt to look for him. All because of _him_. All because of this half-witted, incessantly irritating—jerkwad!

Jesse clenched his fists. He never promised Petra he would try to talk it out with _Aiden_.

“Oh, so THAT’S what happened! You were lit on _fire_ at some point in your life! Well, that explains a _lot_.”

Aiden fell silent and looked like he was still processing the comment, and Jesse felt the urge to make fun of him even more. The first thing that came to mind was Aiden explaining his already unfunny joke at the building contest, making himself look stupid on top of unimaginative.

“I’m talking about _you_ ,” Jesse said mockingly, and then paused. “I’m saying you’re an idiot.”

“Hey—who are you calling an idiot?” Aiden asked like an idiot.

“ _You,_ now MOVE!”

He had had _enough_ of this. He’d put up with Aiden’s abuse for nine years too long now, and he was DONE.

Before he knew what he was doing, Jesse had grabbed him by his shirt and shoved him so hard that he staggered back and fell.

“Woah!” Aiden gasped, scooting backwards away from him. “Man, I was just joking!”

“Yeah?” said Jesse, sparing him another irate glance as he walked past him. “Well, I wasn’t.”

Thankfully few people seemed to pay much mind to what was going on, and no one bothered to say anything.

Jesse picked up his pace, now looking around frantically for his friend.

He heard him, he _knew_ he heard him. He had to be—

Jesse heard it again, louder this time.

“Reuben?” Jesse called, “Reuben, is that you?”

“Getcha pork chops here!” Jesse heard, looking around and spotting a meat stand a few paces away. “Fresh off the bone!”

The man advertising looked like a butcher, and right in front of him on the booth counter, trembling in fear, was Reuben.

“Reuben!”

Jesse dashed over, pushing through a small gathering of people to do so.

“What’s the big idea?” the butcher grumbled. “I’m trying to run a business here.”

“That’s my pig! You kidnapped my pig!”

“Oh really?” the man said. “Well I found him out in the woods, so I think that makes him MY pig.”

Well, he wasn’t wrong. Generally, that _was_ how things worked around here.

“Please, he’s my friend!” Jesse begged.

The guy didn’t budge, unsympathetically stating, “To me, he’s inventory.”

Jesse looked at Reuben who was still shaking and returned it with his own look of worry. What Jesse couldn’t help but notice was that on top of looking terrified, his best friend now had a big black mark around his left eye.

_Oh no, what happened to you?_

The butcher scratched his chin and appeared to be in thought.

“Buuut, I might be amenable to some kind of trade… Not that you look like you got much of value.” the man snorted a chortle. He snortled. “I gotta get some kind of return on my investment.”

Jesse was appalled by this man’s conduct and lack of any compassion, but more than that, he was just afraid for Reuben. All that mattered was getting Reuben back. If it took everything in his inventory, so be it.

Sadly, the butcher was right. It wasn’t much. Did Jesse really look like that much of a low-life?

“Well, I have some shears.”

The man smiled as Jesse pulled them out.

“Oh, that’s very nice,” he said, but a moment later his smile disappeared. “Ehhh, but _surely_ the life of your friend is worth more than a pair of shears.”

Jesse bit his lip and took a breath to keep from blasting in this guy’s face to go to the nether. Here he was just trying to buy back his friend, and this guy was trying to extort him?

“I have a hoe,” Jesse offered, pulling it out.

“Do I look like a carrot farmer to you?”

_This guy is **really** trying my patience…_

Jesse faked a laugh to keep from screaming. “Um… well,” he said, trying to keep his cool. “I do have…”

Jesse unsheathed his weapon. “A sword.”

He would be sad to give it up, but it was the only thing he still had of any value. Well, aside from some carrots, but the guy had already made his value for those quite clear.

“Hey hey hey, hold on a minute there,” the butcher stammered, reeling back a bit. “Are you threatening me?”

Jesse looked down at himself. Holding the sword outward, he had instinctively taken a fighting posture. He _wasn’t_ threatening him, but… he didn’t have to _say_ he wasn’t, did he?

“What do you think?” Jesse murmured, purposing to not specifically say that he _was_ either.

“All right you little maniac, fine,” the man blathered, looking unsettled. “Take him, he’s yours.”

Against his better judgment, Jesse slammed the sword down on the table and picked up Reuben, leaving it behind in place of his friend.

“Pleasure doing business with you, jerk,” he grumbled.

Of course, Jesse would never have actually attacked the guy, but for that reason he was glad he took his bluff.

_So long, awesome stone sword._

He barely even got to use it, but it had served him well.

After they got a little ways away from the stand, Reuben squirmed and Jesse let him down. No sooner than he did, Reuben gave an offended snort and huffed off in a random direction.

Jesse followed.

“I’m sorry, Reuben,” he said, “I never should have let you run off in the woods.”

Reuben gave him the cold shoulder, turned up his snout and looked away from him to say, ‘I’m not oinking to you anymore.’

“Aww, I bet a hug would make you feel better,” Jesse said, kneeling down in front of him and opening up his arms.

The disgruntled face Reuben was making vanished as he jumped up and nuzzled Jesse’s face.

“Oh, Reuben, what happened to your eye?” Jesse asked, again noticing the big black spot on his left eye.

Reuben backed up and squeaked out his piggy tale of woe.

‘Well you see, Jesse,’ he imagined Reuben saying, ‘I was running home and this big mean ol’ zambie punched me in the face!’

It was his fault, he just knew it. This wouldn’t have happened if he’d kept Reuben with him…

“I’m so sorry, Reuben,” he said, holding him close again.

“Hey, Farmer Boy!” Jesse heard and perked up. “Over here!”

Jesse jumped to his feet and spotted Petra running up to him with Axel and Olivia in tow.

“Guys!” Jesse shouted in excitement, meeting them halfway.

Olivia frowned incredulously. “Jesse, you did _not_ just answer to ‘Farmer Boy.’”

“What? It’s true.”

“I’ve been looking for you,” said Petra, clearly a little exasperated. “Where’ve you been?”

Jesse just smiled, too happy to feel bad about inconveniencing her. “I found Reuben!”

Reuben oinked to announce his presence.

Olivia gave a happy, “That’s great! I knew you would!” while Axel announced, “The Quincunx Stars are back together! Good to have you back, buddy.”

Petra just smiled and spectated their little reunion.

Reuben made the rounds to get his due attention from the others, clearly expecting the same royal treatment from everyone else. He started spouting off a sequence of oinks that Jesse presumed was a retelling of the story Jesse imagined he already told him.

‘Well you see,’ Reuben was probably saying, ‘I was running home and this big mean ol’ butcher guy who smelled bad grabbed me and stuffed me in a bag—!’

“So…” inserted Petra, “where did you find him?”

Jesse wasn’t even quite sure how to answer that. Reuben had already summed it up so well. But when he thought about what just happened, it seemed almost unbelievable. Though, what he actually ended up saying was probably not the most believable anyway.

“It was… weird, actually. I… I think I just accidentally mugged someone.”

Olivia and Axel gave each other that look that meant Jesse had said something they didn’t understand in the least. Petra gave Jesse the same look.

“How do you… ‘accidentally’ mug someone?” Olivia asked, Reuben still blabbing on and begging for her undivided attention as she rubbed his head.

“Well,” Jesse tried to explain. “I found Reuben at one of the booths, but the guy wanted to trade for him, so I offered him my shears, but he wanted more, so I offered him my sword too, and he thought I was mugging him, so I just kinda went with it. Technically he just gave him to me, but I left my sword with him.”

“Wait…” Petra muttered, “he gave him back to you, and you gave him your sword anyway?”

“Well, I figured he _did_ find Reuben, so I’d leave it as a sort of finder’s fee.”

Also, he thought it might help to alleviate his conscience and make him feel less like a criminal.

Petra raised an eyebrow. “Your logic doesn’t make the most sense, but I admire your shrewdness.”

Reuben stood up on his back feet and pawed at Petra’s legs. Petra looked a bit shocked and gently pushed him down, patting him on the head.

“Eeey, glad to see you too little guy.” She turned back to Jesse and said much more smoothly, “Now that I have you all together, are you ready for some more good news?”

Jesse looked at her, eyes widening. “What?” he wondered.

Petra crossed her arms with a mischievous grin. “I found Ivor.”

They all perked at that, giving each other excited looks.

“Come on” she said walking off and gesturing for them to follow. “We need to get into that keynote.”

« … »

I appeal to you, brothers and sisters, in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, that all of you agree with one another in what you say and that there be no divisions among you, but that you be perfectly united in mind and thought.

— 1 Corinthians 1:10

* * *

#### Author’s Notes

So this events in this chapter are a little all over the place, but otherwise, it came out all right. :) Though, for a chapter that was pretty much all about not getting distracted, I sure got distracted a lot while writing it. XD

For some reason, I always have trouble writing dialogue for Aiden because he’s not very quick-witted. Also, here’s a little bonus Bible verse for ya for that part:

Proverbs 26:18-19

_Like a maniac shooting flaming arrows of death is one who deceives their neighbor and says, “I was only joking!”_

And I shall leave you with that! ;P Good day to you all!

\- “If it isn’t the spherehead.” — Instead of ‘blockhead’ as an insult, I used spherehead, because they’re all block heads and spherehead sounds like spearhead. I know, it’s cheesy, but you should be used to that by now. XP

\- Team… Trashbag? — If you’re like me, this line probably made absolutely no sense. That’s why I changed it to something that at least makes sense with an explanation. :P

#### Choice Notes

\- Why not do both? — As I’m sure you’ve noticed, a lot of the choices I make with the dialogue especially try to utilize more than one of the options. I don’t go out of the way to do this as much as possible, I just try to make the whole conversation feel natural and make sense while keeping the characters in character. Yes, sometimes if I really like multiple options, I will try to work them in IF it makes sense and doesn’t mess with the flow. Sometimes though, it actually helps. :) As for the actual game choices, you can see I did that with the one with the black eye, and also the sword. I had separate reasons for both of these that I’m not going to go into now, but just letting you know, I DID have a reason. XD

#### Glossary

\- Glossary Not Found! — I genuinely couldn’t find anything to add to the glossary this time. XD BUT if you see anything that you personally want explained, please let me know. :)


	12. Chapter XI – Partners in Slime

#### Foreword

I am particularly proud of this chapter two reasons. One which I will tell you now, and the second which I will tell you at the end. The first being, this was the first chapter that I was able to finish in a timely manner, without rushing or stressing at all, that I was also totally happy with the end result. I didn’t have to get up early to make any last minute changes, nor realize Friday morning that I forgot to do something really important. It’s still a first draft no doubt, but it was a fun, challenging, and inspiring experience. So, I hope you enjoy reading it as much as I enjoyed writing it. ^^

* * *

Chapter XI

#### Partners in Slime

««««« … »»»»»

Ivy had always been short tempered. She tried to be patient with people, but it was hard to be when so many of them were so stupid.

She had been a clerk for a long time now and had to deal with a lot of people, so she _knew_. She really did try to see ‘positive intent’ whenever she could, but she had to put up with idiots so frequently on duty that she _refused_ to put up with them off duty.

Today in particular, she was gathering a few things from the convention before getting her own booth started. She was selling slime for a redstone retailer of sorts. How slime was used in redstone, she would never know. Or care. Likely, most of the people getting the slimeballs wouldn’t be redstoners though. They’d be dumb kids who liked gross things for some reason.

_Tap tap._

Ivy cringed. She _hated_ being tapped on the shoulder like that. Something about it made her skin crawl and made her want to just—

“Hey you,” said a voice from behind her. “Where do you think you’re—”

She snapped.

“What do you think you’re doing?”

The irked look on the guy’s face quickly turned shocked.

“Oh, I’m sorry,” the guy said, taking a step back.

“Get away from me!” Ivy blasted.

He looked taken aback and whimpered, “I said I was sorry.” As if _that_ helped matters.

Ivy glared at him and stormed off.

The _nerve_ of some people.

As she continued gathering some things for her booth, still, she thought, maybe she had overreacted. The guy was clearly stupid, but that didn’t necessarily make it okay to snap at him. She would have to purpose to be a little more…

Ivy felt eyes on her, and turned just in time to see a girl with pigtails look away from her suspiciously, suddenly enraptured by a sign that read, ‘Magma Cream Facial Mask. May cause rashes or first degree burns. Results not guaranteed’.

Ivy rolled her eyes and went about her business, but as soon as she did, she could sense the girl staring at her again.

This went on for minutes as she pretended not to notice. The girl was so cautiously suspicious it was getting annoying. If she wanted to talk to her, why not just tap her on the shoulder like _everyone_ else?

Then, finally, it came. The _same_ dreaded sensation on the _same_ shoulder no less.

_Tap tap._

Ivy took a quiet breath, and turning around slowly, she forced a courteous, “Can I help you?”

“Oh,” the girl said, looking awkward, “No. Sorry. I thought you were someone else.”

Ivy sighed and continued on her way. Only a couple minutes later however—

_Tap tap._

“Hey,” said a third, different voice. “Do you have a beard?”

Ivy craned her head around, seething at this point and too much so to hide it.

“Do I _look_ like I have a beard?” she sneered at him.

The guy didn’t flinch at all, which was somehow _more_ annoying than the other two getting annoyingly shy and timid.

“Never mind,” he drawled. “Thought you were someone else.”

And that time, it was the stranger who walked off on _her_.

The NERVE of some people!

Finally, she headed for her booth, dreading the night ahead. She loathed to think about dealing with more peo—

_Tap tap._

“What _now_?” Ivy moaned, looking behind her.

“Oh. Sorry,” said the redheaded girl who’d tapped her, “you looked like someone else.”

Ivy rolled her eyes with a sigh. “So I’ve heard.”

She didn’t want to wait around, and made a beeline for her booth where, hopefully, she would be less likely to be mistaken for some dude with a beard.

When she arrived, as if her day couldn’t get _more_ unbearable, she was greeted by a woeful sight. Nearby, a couple booths away from hers, was the winning build to the EnderCon buildathon whatever. Apparently the winner had thrown a huge fit to get it moved because, ‘people were just walking right past it’, and he wanted it somewhere people would ‘actually look at it’ or something stupid like that.

Now on top of everything else, those chickens would never shut up, and she’d just have to deal with the stupid chickens. Just another day of stupid people making her life more difficult. Or at least more annoying.

Ivy had her head buried in the chest of materials under the booth, when she heard the hollow sound of wood in her ears.

_Tap tap._

Ivy shot up from under the counter and snapped, “WHAT?!”

“Whoa, hey,” the blonde guy reeled back in surprise, holding his hands out in front of him. “I was… just gonna ask for some slime.”

Ivy sighed.

“Sorry,” she said. “I thought you were someone else.”

« … »

“He went into the Keynote?” Jesse asked.

“Yeah,” Petra said, pointing out the bouncer-looking guy posted out in front of the gate. “With the moat around the convention center the only way in is through _that_ gate to _that_ bridge. We’re going to have to get past that usher to follow him.”

“Thaaat might be easier said than done,” Olivia pitched in.

“Okay,” said Petra, “so what’s the plan?”

As the team discussed their approach, Axel’s mind wandered. First it wandered to the idea of eating cookies to celebrate later. Then it wandered to his poor costume that was smoldering out in the woods somewhere. Then to the chicken machine—the build that would go down in history as the dumbest winning build the EnderCon Building Competition would ever know.

Sure it was an awful build. Sure it should have been burned down like theirs had. Buuut, that didn’t mean it didn’t have at least a couple good qualities. Anything designed to trap and mess with chickens couldn’t be _all_ bad, right?

Axel found himself staring at it.

_Chickens…_

Chickens were the worst. Except when they were cooked. Cooked chicken was the best. Well, after cookies. Feathers were kinda fun too. It was fun to stuff peoples shirts with feathers and watch them go crazy trying to pull them all out. Other than that, though, chickens were just awful. They would stare at you for no reason and peck at you. It was fun to see them do those things to other people, but when one was on the receiving end, it was no fun at all.

“Axel?” Jesse called, the others already heading for the gate. “You comin’?”

Axel looked back at him. “Yeah, I was just—”

“Getting distracted by the chicken machine again?”

Axel wilted. “Yeah.”

“Well, c’mon,” Jesse urged. “We don’t have all night.”

« … »

As they approached the usher, Jesse noticed he wore a button-up shirt and a mop of blonde hair atop his head. He looked like any normal surfer dude—not that surfer dudes fit any definition of the word ‘normal’—and he had the voice to match.

“So, yeah, hey,” said Jesse. It was valid enough. Reuben gave a similar greeting.

The ‘play’ as they decided was to try and persuade him with a lie. Jesse felt a bit bad about it, but it wasn’t like they were just trying to get a free show.

Petra followed that up with a smooth, “What would it take to get us inside tonight?”

The usher raised his brow and muttered, “Uh… tickets.”

He gave a hearty chortle as if it were the best joke ever, then added, “That was a good one. You should laugh.”

 _So,_ Jesse thought. _That’s how you wanna play, huh? Well, then it’s time for mister nice guy._

Jesse laughed as well. “Heh, ha ha! That _was_ a good one!”

“You think so, man?” asked the usher with a smile, checking someone else’s ticket and admitting them as he spoke. “No one ever likes my jokes. Probs ‘cause I usually tell them to people while I’m dragging them out kicking and screaming.”

“Ha, yeah!” Jesse went along, despite the almost threatening tone to his comment. “See, the thing is—we _had_ tickets, but we lost them.”

“Aw, man,” the usher moaned sympathetically. “I hate when stuff like that happens.”

“Ugh, me too! I feel like such an idiot!”

_Moment of truth. Or moment of… finding out if the lie works._

“I’m sorry, but… no tickets, no show.”

Well, that was a bust. He couldn’t say he was surprised, though. He’d barely expected it to work in the first place.

As they walked away again, Jesse overheard another group trying to get in without tickets.

“Please!” one of them said. “We _have_ to get in to see the—I mean… we’re on an important mission!” The usher gave them the same response.

Was that what they looked like? If so, Jesse thought, it would be impossible to get in. Funny because they actually _were_ on an important mission. Sort of.

They regrouped a ways away and formed a circle so as not to be heard.

“We have to do something,” Petra said.

“Like what?” questioned Olivia. “This show has been sold out for ages.”

“We need a distraction,” said Jesse. “Something to keep that usher’s eyes on just long enough for us to sneak through.”

Reuben gave an oink of agreement.

“Maybe one of us could talk to him while the others sneak around?” Olivia pitched.

“Hmm, something tells me that won’t be possible with the moat,” said Petra. “We could… no, that wouldn’t work.”

Jesse wracked his brain for a solution. He glanced at Olivia who looked to be thinking hard, then to Petra who looked determined to come up with a way. Then he looked to Axel who was… staring at the chicken machine.

“Axel!” Jesse exclaimed.

Axel jumped. “Huh? Oh, yeah, sorry—I was thinking, I just got distracted—”

Jesse beamed and threw up his hands in excitement. “You’re a genius!”

Axel looked confused. “I am?”

Jesse rushed to explain as Olivia and Petra gave him their full attention. “What’s more distracting than chickens?”

“True,” said Petra raising an eyebrow, “A lot of chickens running around would definitely be a distraction. But where would we get that many chickens?”

He thought she’d never ask.

Jesse smiled and pointed directly at the winning build.

“Right _there_.”

Petra blinked. “Oh. That would work.”

“Woah woah,” Axel blurted out. “Are you actually suggesting… what I _think_ you’re suggesting?” he shook his head in disbelief. “Are you suggesting that we _grief_ that chicken machine?”

Jesse blinked and looked to Reuben. “I… I guess I am. Is… is that okay?”

Petra shrugged. “I’m all for ridding the world of stupidity.”

Olivia mirrored her thoughts with a simple, “Ditto.”

“That thing is FULL of chickens,” Axel heavily emphasized this, pointing over at it. “You realize that once you break it, chickens are going to start flying EVERYWHERE.”

“Well, that _was_ the idea.”

“Oh boy!” Axel giddily hopped up and down. “Tell me I’m not dreaming!”

Jesse had never seen him so excited.

“But you have to break _that_ pane of glass.” Olivia pointed near the base of the cage where the chickens were gathered, which happened to be about five blocks up. “How’re you going to reach it?”

That was the question. Jesse hadn’t a clue.

“Let’s look around,” said Petra. “there has to be something we can do.”

The group went their separate ways again, in search of something they could use to break the chicken machine, or otherwise create a chicken-bomb-sized distraction. Jesse went straight to his trusted advisor.

“Reuben, I need your guidance,” Jesse reverently addressed him. “What would you do in a situation like this?”

Reuben wisely gave a series of grunts and concluded with a nod.

“I see…” said Jesse. “Good idea.”

Jesse followed Reuben’s advice and noticed a guy jumping up and down on a squishy block of slime. It seemed to be a demonstration, next to which was a booth for slime.

“Hmm…” Jesse looked back to the chicken machine as an idea formed in his mind.

If he were to jump from the top of one of the booth shades and onto a slime block, that _should_ be enough to get him up to break that glass. Then all the chickens would be home free, and so would they.

He wasted no time and went straight up to the slime stand, but Jesse almost jolted when he saw who was running it.

It was the lady from before who he’d thought was Ivor.

“Ohh… heeyyy…” he said, trying—and failing—to suppress the sudden surge of awkwardness he felt. “We meet again… heh heh… heh…”

The lady stared at him and raised a mildly irritated eyebrow.

 _At least she’s cooled down now,_ he thought. Still, he should at least apologize.

“I’m _really_ sorry about earlier—I honestly thought you were someone else.” Jesse put on the best smile he could.

The lady quirked an eyebrow, then actually gave a slight smile of her own in return. “Apology accepted.”

 _Whew!_ Jesse internally exhaled.

“Soo… could I get a slime block?” he pleaded, then added for good measure, “Pretty please?”

“We’re only giving out slimeballs,” she explained, “Slime blocks can be purchased from the business owners on the sign—” she pointed to sign in front of the booth, “—or you can craft your own with nine slimeballs. Which, before you ask, I cannot give you. We’ve got a limited supply today and we’re only giving out two per customer.”

Jesse smiled. Fortunately for him, there were five of them. That would be enough to get ten.

“Thanks!” he said, “I’ll be right back,” and he took off to get his friends.

« … »

Jesse grinned, holding his two slimeballs, each of his friends with their own set.

He had just finished explaining his plan to them when it suddenly hit him.

“Wait, this is only eight slimeballs.” He had forgotten that despite his awesomeness, Reuben still didn’t technically count as a person, so he couldn’t really count as a customer. “We need one more to make a block.”

“Okay,” Petra jumped into action again. “We need to find a way to get more slime, and quick.”

“On it!” Axel acknowledged, and before Jesse could say another word, all of them had piled their slimeballs into his arms and taken off again.

“Okay,” Jesse muttered to himself, pocketing all the slime before looking around.

He considered just purchasing another ball, but his encounter with the butcher proved how little his current inventory was worth.

“Where to find one more—”

Not a _moment_ later, as if destiny dictated he always be right _exactly_ within view _exactly_ when he was most wanted—or most unwanted—Jesse spotted Lukas standing ten blocks away, tossing a slimeball up and down no less.

It was as if they had conjured him.

Without thinking, Jesse blurted out, “Slimeball!”

Lukas perked and glanced at Jesse with a look of baffled bewilderment mixed with anger. “Come again?”

“No—not you!” Jesse blathered. “I mean, yes, you, but not—you’re not—I need your slimeball.”

Lukas looked at the slime in his hand.

“You… need my slimeball?”

“I swear, I have a really good explanation—”

Lukas blinked. “Okay?”

Jesse was about to speak, but felt weird about the idea of telling him what was going on without inviting him to come along. Honestly, it wasn’t that he didn’t want to invite him along. After their last conversation, he was… well, he was cool with him. At least right now. He knew Petra wouldn’t mind, but Olivia and Axel…

 _“Olivia and Axel aren’t the boss of you.”_ Petra had said. _“In **fact** , if you ask me, it seems more like **you’re** the boss of **them**. The chances of them ‘going along with it’ are **pretty** high.”_

He didn’t want to push it on them, but, well… if he’d had that mentality when they were kids, Axel and Olivia wouldn’t have become friends either.

Lukas blinked at him again. “Jesse? You in there?”

“Oh—right,” Jesse babbled. “Umm… we’re trying to get into the keynote to follow the creepy beardy guy, and…” he paused. “Lukas, do you want to come with us?”

Lukas gave him a bemused look. “You want _me_? To come with _you_.”

Before Jesse could respond, Petra came running over with Olivia and Axel close behind.

Petra smiled. “Lukas!”

“Well I’m popular today,” he smirked, then gave Jesse a wry grin. “Okay. Count me in.”

Axel looked shocked. “You invited _Lukas_?”

Olivia looked dubious. “ _You_ invited Lukas?”

“Yeah?” Jesse answered. He left it at that. While Axel and Olivia gave each other somewhat confused looks, they didn’t say anything.

“Did Jesse explain?” Petra asked Lukas.

“Um…” Lukas looked somewhat bemused over at Jesse. “Kinda?”

Jesse gave a bashful smile, rubbing the back of his head, and Petra raised her eyebrow at him.

Turning to Lukas again, she explained, “We need another slimeball so we can break into the keynote and find the guy that ripped me off.”

Jesse jumped in to add, “Oh, and we’re gonna break that stupid chicken machine that won the contest.”

He wasn’t sure… he could have been imagining it, but Lukas’ eyes opened wide, giving him an almost crazed look, with the impression that he was thinking, _“Did you say chicken machine? In combination with ‘break’?”_

“Sold,” said Lukas, immediately handing his slimeball to Jesse.

Jesse grinned. Now they had nine slimeballs, enough to make a block of slime, and hopefully enough to get them into the keynote.

Conveniently, the crafting booth happened to be right there, and right across from the chicken machine to boot. That would make climbing up without being noticed a cinch. All they needed now was the slime block.

Right as Jesse was about to throw all the slime down onto the table and unceremoniously spread them all out, Lukas spoke up.

Jesse instinctively slowed down to a snails pace so he could listen.

“So, you guys have been building together for a long time, huh? You’ve got good chemistry.”

Axel chimed in, “You jealous?”

“I’m just saying, I think it’s cool you have a team that works so well together.”

“You’re totally jealous.”

_What’s going on in that head of yours, Lukas?_

“How’s it going, Jesse?” asked Axel “You know how to do this—a slime in every slot, and in every slot a slime.”

Jesse had impressively taken this long to place five of the nine balls, but he couldn’t take too much longer or he’d start to raise suspicions.

“I’m not jealous,” Lukas continued through a slight laugh. “The Ocelots are great builders. I’m happy to call them teammates and I’m happy to build with them. Sometimes, they just have a hard time working together.”

“Among other things,” Axel inserted.

Jesse stopped for a moment.

Lukas had said ‘ _teammates_ ’. Not ‘ _friends_ ’.

Jesse raised a curious eyebrow as Lukas went on. “It’s just nice to see that you all get along so well.”

_He doesn’t **talk** like a jerk. Actually, he just talks, like, a lot._

“I mean, I’m not not saying I wouldn’t _prefer_ —”

“You about done there Jesse?” Olivia interrupted. Whether it was because she was tired of waiting, or tired of listening to Lukas ramble—or both—he should probably get a move on.

“I know, what’s taking so long?” complained Axel.

“Cut him some slack,” Petra said sounding sarcastic, “it’s only his second time crafting.”

“All right, all right!” Jesse said, placing the last slimeball down. “I’m done. Yeesh.”

With that, the block appeared on the table, replacing the ingredients.

“Ta-da!” he announced. “One slime block!” Jesse looked down at the squishy and—well, slimy block on the table and muttered in disgust, “ _Gross_.”

Olivia snatched up the block of gross without hesitation, as if it were a piece of cake. “I’ll take that.” She walked off and started muttering to herself, “Now, if I just line this up right—”

“Wait a minute, wait a minute,” Lukas babbled. “Are we sure about this?”

They all turned to look at him.

“Sure about what?” Jesse asked.

“Sure about actually doing damage to someone’s property?” he said. “Not that it doesn’t sound fun, but…”

Jesse was just about to respond when who should come strutting up to them but the winner of the EnderCon Building Competition.

_Oh no, not this guy…_

Jesse had never even learned the guy’s name, but apparently he’d won _once_ in the past, and now he was convinced he was the next Soren.

“Hello there,” said the ‘winner’, a smug look on his face and an incredibly obnoxious nasal quality to his voice. He looked like a sloppy nerd, and wore the dumbest most gaudy looking t-shirt of a chicken he’d ever seen. “Did you see my _amazing_ build set up _right_ in front of the keynote? Yup! This bad boy beat the Ocelots and broke their nine year streak!”

The lot of them gave him dirty looks—even Reuben—but this guy pretended not to notice. He wasn’t oblivious to it, he just wanted to flex his nonexistent skills on two of the only teams who were actually good at building.

“I know, I know, you want an autograph, right?” he bragged. “Well unfortunately, I don’t have the time. I need to go prepare myself for my _meeting_ with _Gabriel_.”

Somehow this guy managed to be even more smug than Aiden. While Aiden was just a dumb jerk, this guy elevated himself so high up into the clouds it was amazing he didn’t demand they refer to him as ‘your majesty’.

“But if I’m not too _busy_ , I’ll try to get you one later.” The guy laughed.

No one said anything. They all just turned to Jesse with looks that suggested if he didn’t do something, any one of them might wring this guy’s neck. Jesse responded by turning to Lukas with a look of his own that suggested if he still had any reservations after this, there was no hope for him.

Lukas returned the look with a nod and a simple, “Do it.”

Jesse smiled and happily nodded to Olivia.

“Huh? What are you talking about?” the guy asked indignantly.

Olivia didn’t say a word and went straight to setting up the slime block.

“What—What are you doing?”

They ignored him. Jesse gestured to Axel and Axel immediately got in place to give Jesse a boost. Jesse climbed atop the crafting table booth and looked out at the chicken machine then down at the slime block.

_One distraction, coming right up!_

Jesse backed up to the edge, charged, and jumped.

Jesse hit the glass as hard as he could. The glass shattered, and Jesse fell to the ground with more poise than he should have been capable of.

Just like Axel had predicted, the chickens flew EVERYWHERE. Under booths and over them, on top of counters and—people. And the people, oh _boy_ the people, they started racing around like mad to get away from the stir-crazy birds as they ran amok, evidently intent on seeking revenge for their unlawful imprisonment.

Even though all they were really doing was running around, it seemed their distraction had worked even better than they expected. The usher was not only distracted, but took to the fray in a flurry, barking out instructions for people like, “Keep your eyes closed! They will peck out your eyes!” As for the culprits, no one was even looking at them, as they all seemed much more tied up with guarding their inventory or running around like—well, like chickens.

As for the damage done to the chicken machine itself, the one thing that wasn’t a surprise was that no one seemed to care. Even as the owner shouted for help and for justice to be served, his cries went completely and entirely ignored.

Jesse couldn’t help but smile at the sight. While they were annoying, chickens were harmless, but the chaos suited their needs just fine.

“Come on!” Jesse urged the team. “Let’s get in there!”

His four friends and Lukas looked to him, each wearing a similar look of pleasure, and they dashed across the bridge together.

« … »

A gentle answer turns away wrath, but a harsh word stirs up anger.

The tongue of the wise adorns knowledge, but the mouth of the fool gushes folly.

— Proverbs 15:1-2

* * *

#### Author’s Notes

_“What would it take to get us inside tonight?”  
The usher raised his brow and muttered, “Uh… Lukas.”_

That was a good one, you should laugh.

Now as for the second reason. This chapter was a deceptively important chapter to me personally. Deceptively because I myself didn’t even quite realize how important to me it was until I finished it. This marks a spot in the road that I have been excited to get to for a LONG time, and once I put the final line in this chapter down onto the white screen, it was like taking a breath of fresh air. It suddenly hit me that I’ve arrived at the first major turning point in this long story, and I don’t even want to say what it is. X) I realize I tend to ramble, and I don’t want to unintentionally spoil the experience for anyone because I couldn’t keep my mouth shut. That being said, I’m particularly proud of this chapter for that reason as well. ^^

My one regret with this chapter was that I wasn’t able to work in Lukas’ “Anything’s possible,” line. XD Second draft material!

\- Fixed it! — And finally! My brilliant plan shall finally be recognized! The true masterful reason behind making it so they both lose the competition!  
Ahem…  
If Jesse and his friends win the competition, why aren’t they allowed to enter the keynote without a ticket?! Likewise, if the Ocelots win, why isn’t Lukas in there? This one could be reasoned out with something as simple as Lukas just not being a big fan of the Order in general. This makes sense anyway as he doesn’t really seem to be that into them anyway. Still, if he didn’t go in, couldn’t he maybe get them inside somehow? Or wouldn’t they at least think to try this? My idea fixes everything and makes the story perfect! ):{

\- Breaking the Chicken Machine — So I realized while adapting this thing that them breaking the chicken machine really was a selfish thing for them to do. That was one of the things I really wanted to fix, but it still needed to happen. My hope was that in making the build they break the one they both lost to, and one that literally NO ONE likes it’s still not exactly morally right, but it’s much more understandable at least. XD

\- Don’t make me call security! >:{ — I couldn’t help but notice that a lot of people in this part of the game are just weirdly hostile toward Jesse for no good reason. Ivy seriously overreacts to Jesse mistaking her for Ivor, and the chicken guy threatens to call security on Jesse when he hasn’t done anything. Anyways, that wasn’t really something I ‘fixed’ as much as something I just changed, but yeah. XD Thought I’d mention it.

\- Chiiiiiiickeeeeen! — So yeah, you probably noticed if you remembered it, that I took out the usher’s crippling fear of chickens. :P Wrong! I took out the statement of it without removing the allusion to it, so you can see it how you want. :]

#### Choice Notes

Yeah, most of the choices in this one were either obvious, or I just ended up doing something else entirely. :P I was temped to have him break the glass with his face, but I needed him to be able to describe the following events and not be seeing stars. :P

#### Glossary

\- Slime — Slime is bouncy and squishy and can be used in certain aspects of redstone. The ball variant can be used in crafting fun stuff, and the block variants are the trampolines of Minecraft. :D They’re lots of fun! Albeit possibly gross. XP They’re obtained from slimes which are monsters mostly found underground that look like large green jelly cubes.

\- Magma Cream — Really sounds nicer than it is. XP Not much is known about its properties, just that it’s hot stuff (supposedly cream) obtained from magma cubes in the nether. Magma cubes are monsters that resemble slimes, but look more like—well, magma. Magma cream is mostly used in brewing.

\- The Booth Shades — Yeah, I felt the need to mention for the sake of anyone not privy to Minecraft that this is possible. Any solid block, no matter how unstable it would be in real life is just as stable as the ground. Man, I really want to go over this story again and make it REALLY read like a novel one of these days, where you can read it and not need ANY of this stuff explained. :D I’m going to finish it once first, though. XP


	13. Chapter XII – Keys to the Keynote

#### Foreword

Okay, I have no idea how this keeps happening, but somehow the chapter titles keep getting thrown off even though I've checked them. @_@ Also, I'm sorry, I forgot to post on Friday again. T-T Not to worry, though! Fortunately the time is fast approaching that all of you on Ao3 will be caught up to my other readers, and you shall be neglected no longer! :')

You know what’s annoying? I didn’t have trouble writing this, but every time I sat down to write it, my mind SUDDENLY became obsessed with thinking about literally every other random thing in the planet! That game I only played ten minutes of, that cartoon I watched like three years ago, that Minecraft map that I played a few days ago, that song I listened to a couple times when I was like fifteen, that stupid STUPID movie! >:((( Like my brain was just like, ‘Nuuuu, I just wanna goof around and have fuuun! I don’t wanna write and be productive, waaaa!’

Anyway, enjoy. :)

* * *

Chapter XII

#### Keys to the Keynote

««««« … »»»»»

“So… just to clarify,” Petra heard Lukas ask through a whisper, bringing up problems with the plan when it was far too late to do anything about it as he so often liked to do, “we’re _not_ worried at all about the fact that we just broke someone’s build, and will likely get in trouble for it?”

“Pft. I could fix that thing in my sleep,” Olivia scoffed.

Lukas nodded. “Fair point.”

The four—five—uh, six of them—including the pig—shifted along the wall inside the auditorium. It wasn’t likely they’d be noticed now that they were inside as the place was crowded and dim everywhere but the brightly lit stage, but Petra kept an eye out for security anyway.

Though she wasn’t sure why it came as a surprise to her, she felt great going into this with allies this time. Of course it wasn’t as though she couldn’t handle one crazy old guy alone, but it was nice to not _have_ to. 

She looked ahead to Jesse in front, for the first time seeing the fruits of her labor. They all followed behind him, somehow with Petra bringing up the rear. It was definitely a change of pace for her, but she didn’t regret a single effort.

Having backup really was—

“And now,” a male announcer called out in a loud voice from the stage, “The moment you’ve all been waiting for!”

“Here to announce the winner of this year’s building competition…” said the female co-announcer, and Petra looked to see all of her weird friends crane their heads up to look at the stage and immediately become enraptured—including the pig.

Petra sighed and resisted the urge to smack herself.

The two on stage continued to play off each other’s announcements as her ‘team’ stared, rapt with anticipation and resembling a bunch of dogs eyeing a steak.

“For the first time _ever_ here at EnderCon…”

“We are very proud to present—”

“The one… the only…”

Then the two shouted in sync what would probably be cool if she cared at all, “Gabriel the Warrior!”

More lights, some smoke, and a rising platform later, Gabriel the Hero Dude was standing before his crowd of adoring fans making his grand opening. They all went wild with cheers ranging from the standard “Gabriel! Aaahh!” to the ever popular, “We love you!”

“Thank you, thank you,” their hero said, waving his hands down to quiet them and giving a slight bow. He then threw his hands up in the air and asked theatrically, “Are. You. With me?!”

“TO THE END!” the crowd chanted.

Petra tapped a foot.

_Just announce the dumb winner already so we can all get on with our lives, please?_

“We are proud to announce the winners of the EnderCon Building Competition…”

_Finally._

“The, uh—” Gabriel squinted at the paper. “Get-pw-pyu-pooned-pawned—I think there’s a typo here.”

A frazzled-looking girl with a book and quill speed-walked onto the stage and rushed to whisper something in his ear.

“Not a typo?” he asked, sounding surprised.

More whispering.

Gabriel looked confused. “Powned? But there’s no ‘O’. There’s no vowel here.”

Even more whispering.

“Slang?” His face fell. “Oh.”

With the incredible acoustics, Petra could audibly hear Gabriel mutter under his breath, “This was a bad idea.”

This got a laugh out of the crowd, and Gabriel the Embarrassed Celebrity went about trying to brush it aside as quickly as possible.

Petra looked over at Lukas who had somehow ended up following directly behind Jesse. As the two of them listened intently, Petra thought, _They… really aren’t that different._

She could feel the shame and regret radiating off of her friends, and finally decided enough was enough.

“Okay, you’ve paid your respects and gotten your closure, now can we please get to the reception?”

They snapped out of it, and Jesse actually shook his head. “Huh? Oh, yeah.”

Petra rolled her eyes, and right then, who should she spot walking out of a door on the side of the room but _him_.

“ _Shh_!” she hushed, pointing him out and whispering urgently, “ _Look_!”

_Ivor._

The petty jerk carefully closed the door behind him and looked around, but unfortunately for him, his biggest threat was completely shrouded. Ivor sneaked away down another hallway, a mischievous speck in his eye, and Petra smiled.

_Seems our luck is turning around._

“Well?” Lukas asked Jesse. “Do we follow him or his tracks?”

Jesse looked back to Petra and all other eyes followed, the whole group giving her their full attention.

“Let’s see what he has behind that door,” Petra said. “If we can just get what we came for and not have to confront him, all the better. I don’t feel like causing _another_ scene.”

Jesse nodded and they all followed as he led them around the crowd to the door.

Inside was a dimly lit… uh… closet?

“It’s…” Jesse started, seeming surprised himself.

“A… storage closet?” Petra cut in.

Olivia looked skeptical, wondering, “Why would Ivor be hiding in a storage closet?”

“With how _he_ looks,” said Jesse, “how could he _not_ be hiding in a storage closet?”

Axel snorted a giggle. Reuben just snorted, and raised an eyebrow. Lukas just raised an eyebrow.

“No, no,” Petra muttered. “It can’t be that simple.”

“Wait—over here.” Olivia motioned and walked over to farthest wall from the door. Petra couldn’t help but notice that it was much clearer near the back of the room. In fact, all the junk looked to have been shifted toward the front end.

Olivia pointed out one chiseled stone block in the wall mixed in randomly with a bunch of stone bricks. “Look.”

“Well,” Lukas crossed his arms and said, sounding irritated, “ _that’s_ mildly infuriating.”

“This looks intentional,” said Olivia. “I’ve seen Redstone Engineers use tricks like this to mark a spot without making the redstone obvious.”

Petra looked at her, curious. “Are you saying this might be a secret door?”

“Well it’s not very likely. If this guy couldn’t pay a diamond, there’s no way he could afford that many redstone components. We’d need a switch to find out.”

Jesse’s face lit up, and with a goofy grin, he slowly reached into his pocket.

_Oh gosh no._

“Jesse?” Lukas wondered aloud.

_If he pulls out the lever…_

Jesse pulled out the lever and placed it right on the spot on the wall.

_If that works, I’m gonna…_

Jesse hit the lever, and lo and behold, the stone wall retracted into the adjacent walls block by block until it revealed a dark stairway behind it.

Petra blinked.

After a moment, Lukas broke the silence. “Wow.”

“You can say that again,” said Olivia. “Who knew Jesse carried around a lever with him wherever he went?”

Honestly shocked that had worked, Petra couldn’t think of anything else to say but, “Way to go, Lever Boy.”

Jesse was still smiling, and even brighter than before, but Olivia frowned and crossed her arms. “Hey, what about me?”

“That was really smart, Olivia,” Lukas said with a smile, and Olivia suddenly looked very proud as well.

Axel frowned at him. “That’s—That’s what _I_ was gonna say.”

Petra expected Lukas to make a witty retort—something along the lines of, ‘should’ve said it sooner, then’—but either he didn’t think about it or he was holding his tongue. If it was the latter, then she had to admit, she was proud of him.

As Jesse pulled his lever off the wall—looking far too pleased with himself—Petra fought back the smile that wanted to crawl onto her face. Jesse’s inner dork didn’t need an ounce of encouragement.

Jesse looked to her. “You ready?”

Petra nodded. “Ready.”

« … »

Jesse crept down into the passage below, his friends behind him and the unknown ahead of him. Even though all the steps were all made of stone, he could _swear_ some of them were creaking.

At the bottom, Jesse cautiously peered around the corner where the wall to their left let out into a large, only slightly brighter room. It was completely littered with with bookshelves, most of which were also littered with potions. The floor was cracked and in some places even mossy.

Jesse looked back. His friends were piled up behind him, each trying to get a good look themselves while still staying behind him—even Reuben who perched atop Axel like the proverbial cherry on top.

As Jesse walked out into the open, the rest of them took the liberty to do the same. Everyone but Lukas who stayed peeking out behind the wall, looking skeptical.

“What is all this?” Olivia wondered

“Looks like it used to be the basement,” said Jesse. “Weird place to have a hideout...”

Petra stood by Jesse with her hands to her hips. “I’ll bet you anything I’ll find my Wither skull here.”

Axel, who was already excitedly looking around, chipped in, “And if we find anything else cool to steal along the way, so be it, right?”

Petra crossed her arms. “Axel—that’s not what we’re here to do.”

“We’re getting payback, right?” Axel argued. “No better payback than thieving from a thief.”

“We’re not here for payback, we’re just here for pay.”

“But if we can’t _get_ pay, I say we get even.”

Jesse looked back and forth between them.

Petra frowned. “I don’t want to stoop to his level.”

Axel, sounding flustered, blustered, “I thought that was the whole point!”

Jesse decided to interrupt them, lest this go on all night.

“Axel, Ivor could come back any minute. Let’s just focus on finding the skull, not—stealing.”

“Or a diamond,” Petra added. “I’ll take either.”

“Right,” said Jesse. “A diamond would probably be preferable.”

Axel finally went quiet and pouted, boyishly poking at one of the shelved bottles as the team spread out to search.

He _almost_ couldn’t blame Axel. He knew why he was so excited. He’d been so hyped from destroying the chicken machine that the idea of getting to unleash his inner griefer went to his head. To have all those hopes—weird though they were—dashed so quickly must have been sad for him.

Jesse peeked at some of the books as he walked under an arch made of bookshelves, taking every step cautiously lest he bump into one of them and get a potion to the head. Not surprisingly, it was mostly stuff about brewing.

Just ahead, Petra was going through a large trunk on the ground. As he walked by her she exclaimed, “Ah-ha!” 

He turned in excitement. “You found it?!”

“Nope,” she stated, then materialized a sword. This wasn’t just any sword, however. This sword was colorful and super flashy, shimmering even in the lowlight.

“Whoa!” he marveled. “Is that a—GOLD sword?!”

“Yeah…” she said, astoundingly not sounding the slightest bit amazed, or even surprised. “Not the _best_ material for a sword. Too heavy. And too soft… I can’t imagine a gold sword would be much better in combat than a lever…” she paused, looking thoughtful, then shrugged. “ _But_ , it’s still a sword.”

Petra pushed it into his hands. “Here.”

It was indeed a bit cumbersome now that he was holding it himself, but Jesse turned a curious eye to her.

“But I thought you didn’t want to ‘stoop to his level’.”

“This isn’t stooping to his level,” she said, “this is being prepared to defend yourself. I won’t have you unarmed around a guy who threatened to kill you.”

Wow. That was… kinda sweet of her.

Good enough for him. Jesse smiled and pocketed the weapon. “Thanks, Petra.”

“Anything for my new ‘super-close friend’,” she teased.

Jesse rubbed the back of his head with an awkward smile.

Next Jesse approached Axel, who was either examining… or admiring a shelf covered in things. 

“Find anything?” Jesse asked, afraid to hear the response.

“I wanna steal that. And that,” Axel answered, pointing at a weird-looking device and a potion of unknown substance consecutively. “I just wanna _touch_ that.”

Axel looked to his right at a mushroom. A mushroom… a mushroom?

“It’s just a mushroom.”

“Yeah, but the mushrooms around home are only ever brown. I’ve never seen a red one before. Not in person.” The way Axel said this, you’d think he was talking about a celebrity, or an endangered species. Jesse raised an eyebrow.

“Just touch it, then.”

“Oh really? Oh man!”

Axel touched it.

Nothing happened.

Axel pouted and drawled, “Well, that was disappointing.”

He wasn’t sure what Axel had been expecting, but for some reason now _he_ felt compelled to poke it as well.

Jesse poked it.

Nothing happened.

“Huh.”

« … »

What a bummer.

All this trouble, and they weren’t even going to get their just desserts.

Axel had almost resigned to go back to ‘just looking’ again when out of the corner of his eye, he spotted possibly—no, _undoubtedly_ —the most enchanting jewel of a find a guy could ever hope to behold, only outshone by Petra herself.

He wished he could steal _her_ , but if she didn’t even want him to steal junk from a beardy weirdo, she probably wouldn’t appreciate her heart being stolen.

It stood atop a grand little pillar that looked valuable in and of itself, but this pillar seemed to bow before what it quite literally held on a pedestal. A potion with a purple liquid inside that glowed with mystery and wonderment as it seemed to swirl around on its own.

“Axel…?” Jesse interrupted his train of thought.

“Huh—yeah yeah,” Axel muttered, refusing to take his eyes off the beauty. “I just—got… distracted…”

Mesmerized. Mesmerized was a better word for it.

“C’mon, Axel,” Jesse urged him, starting to sound impatient, “make yourself useful and go find that skull.”

Axel did his best to pry his eyes away, moping off. He supposed Jesse was right, though. Jesse was always right. In fact as far as Axel could remember, Jesse had never _not_ been right. Axel just wasn’t very good at listening.

Axel looked back. Then he shook his head.

_No, Axel. We’re not stealing. Petra said **no** stealing._

He thought he was settled… but then something occurred to him…

That potion was probably worth about a diamond.

It wasn’t stealing, it was… collateral.

Yeah! This way, if they couldn’t find the skull or diamond, they wouldn’t leave empty-handed and have all that effort go to waste. Petra was smart, she would understand that. She might even thank him later. And if they did find what they were here for, he could put it _right_ back. He _would_ put it right back. He made a promise to himself that he would, _right_ after they found what they were looking for.

Axel looked around to see if anyone was watching, then hastily and quietly snatched it from its lofty perch.

>A good thief always covers his tracks, he reminded himself.

Axel spotted the potion he was eyeing earlier—which looked sad now in comparison—and snagged it, putting the pauper potion on the pedestal in the superior potion’s place.

_Fixed it!_

Ivor wouldn’t even miss it. After all, what you didn’t know couldn’t hurt you, right?

« … »

Olivia was overwhelmed with Ivor’s hideaway being in such disarray. She thought the skull would be _impossible_ to find. So, she supposed, she could look for anything that simply _wasn’t_ a book.

_I’ve never seen so many books on enchanting… or at all for that matter._

Despite her efforts however, she found herself distracted by the strange titles, some of which were kind of ominous, and most of which were just _weird_.

_The Mysterious Properties of Dragon’s Breath… The Lapis in the Rough, the history of lapis lazuli down to its discovery… Enchanting with Foresight — The Ancient Art of Reading in Galactic… by Soren._

_Huh…_

How she wasn’t sure, but she’d somehow ended up standing right next to Lukas as he too browsed the many titles. She didn’t suppose she had to, but she suddenly felt awkward not saying anything.

“What a strange collection of books,” Olivia mused.

“I know, right?” Lukas agreed, tilting his head slightly and squinting to read the title, “‘I Gold You So—Impress your friends with your golden knowledge’?” He coughed through a chuckle and smiled in amusement. “What _is_ this?”

“Not exactly a page turner,” she replied. She couldn’t imagine getting through five _sentences_ of the thing without falling asleep or tearing her hair out.

“No kidding,” he said. “And there are _so_ many. This is more books than even _I_ could ever read.”

Olivia raised an eyebrow at him. “ _You_ read?”

Lukas squinted, seeming mildly perplexed. “Is… that surprising?”

“ _No,_ ” she insisted, suddenly a little embarrassed. “You just… don’t seem the type.”

_Nice save, Olivia._

What was she thinking? She wasn’t supposed to care about what Lukas thought anyway.

“Heh… well,” he said, smirking and pulling a book from the shelf. “‘100 Ways NOT to Make a Splash Potion’ definitely isn’t my my type of read.”

“Hey guys,” Jesse greeted, and Olivia turned to face him. “You find anything?”

Lukas smiled and sarcastically asked, “Uhh… you want an instruction manual on ‘How To Build a Creepy Villain Lair Using Everyday Objects’?”

Olivia laughed. Wow, she never thought she’d laugh at one of Lukas’ snarky witticisms.

Jesse shrugged. “Olivia?”

“Well he’s no slouch when it comes to enchanting,” she said. “This is pretty advanced stuff.” 

Jesse rubbed the back of his head, staring off to the side as he murmured, “Sooo… you two… getting along?”

Olivia stared at him. That was a bit of a weird question.

“Oh we’re tearing each other to pieces,” said Lukas sarcastically.

“He’s ferocious,” she added.

Lukas laughed. Olivia grinned.

“Okay,” Jesse said, sounding kinda perturbed. “Good. Good.”

Olivia raised an eyebrow, wondering for the eighth time tonight what exactly Jesse was up to. She’d been surprised to see him talking to Lukas at EnderCon but figured it was the typical post-competition humdrum— _until_ , that is, Jesse actually invited him along with them. Jesse had elected to not explain why. She hadn’t pressed, but she was very curious. She’d thought he hated Lukas every bit as much as she and Axel had, if not more. Why the sudden change of heart?

She had to admit though, she could possibly be starting to see why herself.

“So what did this guy want a Wither skull for?” Lukas asked.

“I don’t know,” Jesse shrugged. “Make a banner?”

“I mean he could just want it for decoration, I guess,” Lukas said. “That’s why _I_ would want one.”

Jesse went on casually, not even making eye contact, “Well when he threatened me—”

Olivia flinched.

“— _Threatened_ you?” she almost blasted.

“Yeah, didn’t I mention that?” said Jesse. “He held a sword to my throat?”

Olivia turned to Lukas who looked shocked. “Wait, wait, wait, this guy tried to _kill_ you?”

Olivia watched the interaction play out as Jesse and Lukas went back and forth and she struggled to keep up.

“Yeah?” Jesse said, like almost getting killed wasn’t _that_ big a deal. 

“And we’re down in his creepy basement lair?”

“Yup.”

“With no one in the outside world knowing where we are?”

Jesse paused a moment at that one, now looking a _little_ nervous himself. “Yeeeah…”

Lukas blinked several times, silence hanging in the air for a good five seconds before he finally muttered, slowly and clearly, “ _Maybe_ we should hurry then…”

“Just keep looking,” Jesse said, more concern lacing his voice now. “We’ll be out of here soon. I hope.”

« … »

Reuben searched and searched, but he couldn’t find anything that even somewhat resembled what he imagined the head of a skeleton would look like if it were withery.

He was starting to feel discouraged, so he stood in the corner and stared at the ground.

Jesse came over with a smile and said to him happily, “Hey Reuben, find any clues?”

Reuben was distraught to disappoint him, but he slumped and hung his head in shame.

 _“I’m sorry Jesse, I failed,”_ he snorted at the ground.

“Aw, don’t be so hard on yourself,” Jesse said, hugging Reuben softly and pressing his mouth to his forehead.

Reuben squeed, suddenly rejuvenated.

What was he doing? This was important, he could tell. He had to keep looking! He couldn’t let Jesse down!

As Jesse went back about looking himself, Reuben redoubled his efforts.

He decided to stop using his eyes since he didn’t know what it looked like anyway, and instead trust his nose.

He started at all the most important looking places, the small pedestal in the middle of the room, around the mushroom on the counter top, and he found nothing. Then he moved to the edges of the room. That’s when he sensed something.

He could smell it.

He started sniffing even more furiously, determined to follow through.

He was close! He was—!

_Bonk._

Reuben grunted and looked up in indignant surprise as Lukas turned around to look down at him. Reuben gestured with his head for him to move.

Lukas just raised an eyebrow. “What?”

 _“Move it dude!”_ Reuben snorted. He would have barked, but he wasn’t a dog. _“You’re in the way!”_

Reuben began prodding and shoving him with his nose until Lukas finally seemed to get the hint.

“Okay, okay,” he said, backing away and leaving Reuben to work in peace.

Reuben sniffed at the wall where Lukas just was, then up just a little bit.

There was _definitely_ something here.

 _“I found something! I found something!”_ he oinked, trying to get Jesse’s attention. It wasn’t a Wither skull, at least he didn’t think it was, but it sure was something! This smell was special, something he’d never smelled before. It had to be important, he just knew it!

« … »

“What is it, buddy? You smell something?” Jesse asked, coming over as soon as he heard the pig’s call.

 _He can’t have actually found something…_ Lukas raised an eyebrow. _Could he?_

Curious, Lukas watched.

Jesse’s pig snorted excitedly at the wall, pawing at it with his hooves and rubbing his snout against it.

“Something over there?” Jesse examined the wall and only a moment later gave a triumphant, “Ah-ha!”

Jesse pulled out his lever again and placed it where Lukas just noticed another block marker in the wall, same as the one on the outside door. Lukas was… impressed.

_Wow. Smart pig._

Jesse threw the switch and before them, the biggest most imposing bookcase retracted into the floor before them.

“Good work, Reuben!” he exclaimed.

Lukas observed as Jesse rubbed Reuben’s head as a reward and Reuben proudly stood up on his hind legs. Lukas smiled.

_He’s… he’s a good friend._

“A secret door in a secret room?” said Olivia, the first to arrive as they all wandered over. “Seems a little… excessive.”

“Aaand Lever Boy does it again!” Petra said.

“Wow,” Lukas commended at last. “Great intuition.”

Jesse gave him a dubious look.

Lukas blinked. “What?”

“Jesse, Lukas wasn’t being sarcastic,” said Petra. “That was a compliment.”

“Oh. Okay,” Jesse said.

Confused, Lukas wondered, “Wasn’t… that obv—”

“Lukas shut up,” Petra muttered.

 _Well okay then,_ he thought.

“Man, it’s a good thing we have you to interpret Petra,” joked Axel, “or we’d _never_ understand a word he says.”

Lukas ignored him, not sure how to go about pleasing them if simple compliments were too dangerous.

“Um… guys?” Olivia murmured, sounding a bit concerned as she called their attention back to the secret behind the bookshelf. “What _is_ it?”

Lukas reeled back a bit when he saw for the first time just what had been hiding in plain sight. It was… a small build of some kind with the blocks in the shape of a T. He recognized all the blocks but the one in the middle.

“What in the Nether?” Petra blurted out.

Olivia scoffed and corrected, “Petra, your language!”

“The Nether is all this stuff?” Jesse questioned.

Olivia glared at him.

“Soul Sand,” Petra pointed out the blocks that made up the three points—the ones he recognized. “It’s everywhere in the Nether.”

Lukas had read about it, but he’d never seen it up close before.

“What about that block in the middle?” Jesse read his mind, indicating the true object of interest.

It was an orange block quite unlike anything Lukas had ever built with, or had even read about. It had what looked like a small dial on its front, each of the nine slots illuminated with their own unique color.

“I’ve never seen one of these before…” Olivia marveled, now enraptured by it. She got a little closer to it, stepping up onto the platform it rested on. “Do you feel that?” she said, taking another step closer and raising a hand up toward it. “It’s—almost pulsing. I wonder if I just—take a closer look...”

“Don’t touch that, Olivia!” Jesse exclaimed, sounding suddenly terrified, and approached only to pull her away from it.

_Good call, Jesse._

Olivia, looking slightly abashed, muttered to Jesse, “I was just curious.”

“Well be careful, we don’t know what it is.”

“How is it _glowing_ like that?” Axel said in amazement.

“What do you think it could be?” asked Olivia.

Axel gaped at it in awe. “I just know I want it.”

Petra furrowed an irritated brow at him. “What is the matter with you?”

Axel shrugged.

“Maybe it’s… some kind of machine?” proposed Jesse.

“If it is,” Olivia replied, “it’s not like any machine I’ve ever seen.”

Lukas didn’t know the answers to any of these questions—he had so many of his own. What did it do? Why did it give off such an eerie aura? He knew about every block that had ever been discovered—How had he never heard of this one? How had he never seen it before? And that… pattern…

Where did he recognize that pattern?

Lukas had a bad feeling about this.

The very familiar sound of the piston door to the stairway immediately shocked him into turning heel. He flinched, alarms bells going off in his mind, and he quietly but frightfully called to the group, “Uh, guys?”

The rest of them spun around too.

“Scatter!” Petra whisper-shouted, and not a moment later, everyone jumped into action.

Jesse yanked his lever off the wall, and each person dashed off to find a hiding spot. Lukas ducked into the nearest large chest he spotted, carefully closing the lid behind him.

He tried to relax and keep his breathing steady, but to no avail.

Lukas had a _very_ bad feeling about this.

« … »

“Ask and it will be given to you; seek and you will find; knock and the door will be opened to you.  
For everyone who asks receives; the one who seeks finds; and to the one who knocks, the door will be opened.”  
— Matthew 7:7-8

* * *

#### Author’s Notes

It’s so hard to write scenes where there are SOO many people saying stuff. DX

So as you may have noticed, all of their viewpoints have been explored in this chapter. I won’t say exactly why because spoilers, but let’s just say that’s somewhat significant. Though not exactly in the obvious way. I’ll just leave it at that. ^^

I noticed that in the game they didn’t announce Gabriel as Gabriel the Warrior, just ‘Gabriel’, and that seemed kind of weird seeing as it’s like, his title. That’d be like the MC at an Owl City concert being like, “Here’s Adam!” So yeah, I changed that. Sorry guys, I just love rambling about the writing process WAY too much. XD

Hope you enjoyed!

\- To the End! — I always thought what Gabriel said was kinda weird, possibly a reference to something that’s never explained, so the solution for me was either to change it to something that made more sense, or create that explanation. Well the explanation kinda fell into my lap, so here ya go. What Gabriel says here is, “Are you with me?” and the crowd chants something somewhat unintelligible, but it sounds like it could be, “To the End!” It makes sense to me since Gabriel is best known for going to the End and slaying the Ender Dragon, that this would be his rallying catchphrase. I have more on that, but I shall save it for another time. :)

\- Finding the Basement — So in the game, they see Ivor go into the keynote, and just, I guess _presume_ that he went into a door that happens to be open, and they just turn out to be right. Well, here they actually see him come out, so it’s reasonable for them to be able to follow his tracks, and since he’s leaving instead of going in, it makes sense that they would expect he’s not in there.  
Fixed! :D  
Also, in the game, they pretty much plan on confronting him, expecting him to be down there, but they still hide when he shows up? Like why? XD It would be much more charismatic of you to just start lounging around and acting like you own the place, then when he shows up and acts surprised be all like, “I’ve been expecting you.” >:) Ooh! Uno reverse!

\- “Nobody ever lets me have any fun!” — I wanted to make the interaction with Axel and Petra less about Axel being a dumb kid and wanting to take stuff that doesn’t belong to him, and more about their, y’know, actual relationship. He doesn’t just want to take a bunch of stuff, he wants her to agree with him.

\- “I don’t want to stoop to his level.” *takes gold sword* — Can I just say, I HATE that if you didn’t give the butcher Jesse’s sword, Petra takes the gold sword for herself? It’s either inconsistent with her character since she JUST SAID she doesn’t “want to stoop to his level”, OR it just makes her a TOTAL hypocrite, and no one likes a hypocrite. - _- I really like that Petra is shown to be a bit of a mercenary, but one with conviction and who draws a line for herself. She’s not a thief, she doesn’t ask for more than something is worth just because she can, and she doesn’t take ‘I was scammed’ as an excuse to steal whatever she wants from this man who clearly has no problem stealing from her. So with that being the case, I realized I still needed proper motivation for her to be okay with giving it to _Jesse_ , since, isn’t that just essentially stealing it on his behalf? So this was my solution. Yes she has convictions but she’s not stupid, and the safety of her friends is much more important to her than being perfectly righteous. Also she probably doesn’t see it as stealing, but rather like compensation for making her go to all this trouble get what she’s already earned. Like, she said, for all the trouble she had _to go through_ to get it, she should already be asking for much more. An extra gold sword is like the least he could do, especially since gold _really_ isn’t _that_ valuable in Minecraft. XP Also might I mention that after she gives him the sword in the game she says, “That’s two you owe me,” like that one belonged to her as well? *rolls eyes* Yeah, Petra needed a lot of fixing.

\- “Well, that was disappointing.” — I don’t know if anyone else even gave a second thought that Axel mentioned wanting to touch the mushroom, but I always thought it such an odd and random thing to throw in there that I felt like I just had to make it even more odd and random. The result was this silly interaction. XP Call it pointless, but I think it actually shows nicely how Jesse and Axel will act as friends, so I went ahead and kept it in. :D

#### Choice Notes

Aside from the obvious, ‘Yeah I didn’t have Jesse take the potion ‘cause that’s dumb and OOC’ there weren’t game changing choices in this one. XD

#### Glossary

\- Galactic — Galactic is the alphabet used in enchanting. While it’s translatable in the game to weird things that don’t actually have any meaning, it’s safe to assume in a real world it would definitely have meaning. :P However I would imagine the means of understanding it isn’t common knowledge, or even uncommon knowledge, but rare to the point almost no one knows about it.

\- Enchanting & Brewing — Should have (might have) explained this sooner, but here we go. XD While definitely two different things, enchanting and brewing are seen as kind of one and the same. They both have to do with applying magical effects, one to objects and one to people. Enchanting is the process of giving a magical effect to an item, usually a tool or armor (though you can technically enchant any item) and brewing, needless to say, is used to make potions that give the people who use them, or the people they’re used on, a magic effect. Potions of course give effects like poison, speed, and invisibility, while enchantments give things like efficiency, sharpness, and knockback.

\- Red Mushrooms — Mushrooms are pretty much just that. You can make soup with them, and the red ones are only slightly more rare. Funnily enough, it’s only the brown mushrooms that are actually used in making potions, so who knows why Ivor had a red one lying around. Maybe ‘How To Build a Creepy Villain Lair Using Everyday Objects’ told him to. Possible excerpt: _Mushrooms are super spooky and mysterious. Especially the red ones. Your workspace looking a little too plain and ‘good’? Just add a red mushroom in a pot, and instantly make anyone who passes by think, ‘Ooh… this guy looks evil.’_


	14. Chapter XIII – A Recipe For Disaster

#### Foreword

Good afternoon! So good to see you again! :3 I have a new chapter for you, and I think it came out purdy good. ^^ In the future, I think I’ll stick to writing things _before_ I start posting them though. :P Or at least planning them out all the way.

Anyway, enjoy! And I hope your day is splendid. ^^

* * *

Chapter XIII

#### A Recipe For Disaster

««««« … »»»»»

  
Ivor strutted down into his lair, a triumphant grin on his face. He had just finished setting up the redstone behind the stage without being seen, heard, or even given a second thought. While invisibility potions did help, and so did the ruckus of the crowd, he would like to thank his cunning stealth and timing skills for his flawless success.

It was all downhill from here. As long as there were no more unpleasant surprises.

Ivor had been planning this for a long time. The years before he’d _started_ planning he’d spent stewing in bitter resentment. Left alone with nothing but his own thoughts for company, Ivor had only one thing on his mind.

Regret. He felt nothing but regret for the foolish promise he made over a decade ago, the promise that ruined his life. It was a strange irony that that same regret was all that was keeping him going now. Regret, and the promise he made to himself. He promised he would make things right, but he would need to do so without breaking his first promise.

That was when his plan took root, and here he was today. He had awaited this moment for years.

“Don’t you recognize me?!” he blasted at the air, imagining the baffled look on that self-righteous fool’s face. “Or wait...” That wasn’t very cool… “Surprised to see me?!” he practiced again. “No, that’s not good... Thought you were rid of me, didn’t you?!” Ivor smiled. “That’s better…”

Ivor was on his way to put the finishing touches onto his masterpiece when he noticed… the secret door… it was _open_.

“That’s… strange,” Ivor muttered. He could have sworn he closed it before he left…

_Curious…_

What were the chances, he wondered, that he had remembered doing something he hadn’t done? Not likely. Ivor was many things, but delusional was not one of them. Or… was it?

No matter. Ivor knelt down and opened the large chest that contained the three skulls, but just as he was about to pull them out, the sound of a glass bottle clattering against stone rang out.

Ivor spun around, the chest closing behind him. “Who’s there?!”

Dead quiet.

Ivor walked back into his myriad of bookshelves to where he found a potion of swiftness on the ground, but no one was there. Or… were they?

Quietly, he crept around the side of the bookshelf.

Hiding behind it, cautiously looking away from him, was a girl dressed in red.

“YOU!” he shouted, causing her to whirl around and jolt back. She tried to scurry away but Ivor caught her by the back of her collar, pulling her out of her hiding spot.

“What are you doing here?!” he demanded throwing her down on the ground in front of him.

“HEY!” Ivor heard out of nowhere, and snapped his head up again just in time to see none other than Jesse, the one he’d threatened for the Wither skull, charging toward him. The very next second, Jesse had pounded his fist into his face, causing Ivor to reel back.

Ivor tried to ignore the sting in his face as Jesse grabbed the girl by the arm. He pulled her away and she seemed to shy back behind him, keeping her eyes fixed on Ivor.

Right behind Jesse, out came another unfamiliar face, and Petra herself.

_Well isn’t this just **perfect!**_ he internally grumbled.

“Leave her alone!” Petra spat, while the larger, sloppier-looking boy, said, “Yeah! Back off, pal.”

“You two?!” Ivor bellowed, incensed at the gall of these children. “Did you _follow_ me here?”

“What do you think, _thief_?” said Petra. “What, that you could just threaten my friend, screw me over and get away with it?”

Ivor crossed his arms and corrected with his chin up, “I _technically_ never promised you anything. I only said that a diamond sounded like a fair trade.”

Petra seethed. “Why you—you little—”

“What are you going to do about it?” Ivor questioned, hands to his hips as he boasted, “I have what I want and you have exactly _nothing_ on me.” He narrowed his eyes and said menacingly. “Now get out before I put you out.”

_Hmm… that could have been better._

“Hey!” the larger boy said, stomping up to Ivor. “Nobody talks to my friends like that! Now shut your mouth—or else.”

Ivor, already burning a short fuse, was running on borrowed time.

“I won’t be threatened,” he huffed, “—not by the likes of you.”

“Look, we’re not here to cause trouble,” said Jesse, “we just want what we’re owed—”

“Enough!” Ivor interrupted. “You’ve wasted too much of my time already.”

With that, Ivor dashed off to the bottom of the stairway where his last resort was waiting. The group of kids was right on his heels, but it was too late for them. As soon as they caught up, Ivor was already in place behind the iron framework of his defense. One more block to the structure, and it would become a force that not even Petra was equipped to handle.

Ivor held a pumpkin over his head, and as they spotted him the only one to visibly react was a blonde guy Ivor hadn’t even noticed was there until now. The rest of them seemed slow on the uptake.

Ivor looked down on them. “If you won’t leave of your own volition, I’ll happily remove you myself!”

Ivor dropped the pumpkin into its place and the blocks rumbled until a plume of particles erupted from its form. The creature unfolded its long arms and stretched out to its full size, leaving a metal mammoth standing before them, eyes red and fixed ahead. An iron golem.

He’d always wanted to have an excuse to build one, so perhaps this was a good thing after all.

They reacted _now_ , looking suddenly terrified.

Ivor grinned, crossing his arms and speaking to his creation, “Show our friends the door, will you?”

The iron golem stepped forward then stopped suddenly, slowly raising a hand to point behind them. The group looked confused, and most of them looked around to see what the golem was pointing at. It was the door.

Ivor smacked himself.

“No, no!” he bellowed in exasperation, then met its confused eyes and pointed at the intruders, ordering as clearly as possible, “Attack them you nitwit!”

The iron golem looked back to the group in confirmation and started to close in on them. It took one swing at them with its heavy iron fist and the little cowards scattered like chickens. Each time it struck, they dodged, but as a testament to its strength it broke whatever it did hit. It smashed its fist into the wall, then brought up its arms and hammered downward, busting a hole in the ground.

_Shame. I’ll have to fix that now._

It wasn’t long before the interlopers were headed for the Far Lands, out the door in seconds. Once they were all gone, Ivor smiled again.

Finally there were no more problems. No more setbacks. Nothing could stop him now.

_Soon…_

Yes, soon.

“Soon my plan with be complete, and the world will finally know—!”

_Tap tap._

It was the iron golem. Ivor spun around and glared at it for interrupting his monologue—according to a book he’d read, they were good for building confidence.

“What?” he grumbled shortly.

The golem reached out one of his massive hands and presented Ivor with a poppy.

Ivor blinked. “Oh. Thank you.”

« … »

Jesse held Reuben tight as he ran, heart pounding, refusing to look back. Jesse followed behind as the rest of his friends made their way up the stairs, out the door, and around to the back of the crowd.

After Jesse was sure they were safe, he caught his breath and asked, “Everybody okay?”

“Um… guys?” Olivia sounded nervous, looking around as she finished, “Where’s Lukas?”

Jesse looked back and around, but sure enough, he wasn’t with them.

“I… thought he was right behind me.”

Then Axel jumped in. “Well, if he’s not here, the only place he could be is—”

Jesse stiffened as all eyes turned back to the door they had just come from. “He’s still down there!”

Petra immediately jumped in. “Lukas is trapped down there with an iron golem and a dangerous madman with a flip-ton of potions. If either of those monsters finds him…” She didn’t need to finish the thought. “We have to act fast.”

Olivia explained, “It just so happens that the greatest warrior of all time is in the building. We should ask Gabriel for help.”

_No way,_ Jesse thought.

He couldn’t just leave Lukas down there all by himself. He’d be hesitant to even leave _Aiden_ to fend for himself with a monster like that, and Lukas was many things but Aiden wasn’t one of them.

Jesse steeled his nerves and frowned. He’d made his decision. “I’m going after Lukas by myself.”

“By yourself?” asked Petra, sounding surprised.

Jesse’s frown softened against his will into a more worried look. “Yeah.”

“No way,” Petra insisted, but before he could argue she stated simply, “If you’re going, I’m coming with you.”

Jesse couldn’t help but smile, even though they were both risking their lives.

Reuben squealed in agreement, marching up next to him and standing firm, sticking his snout in the air.

Jesse nodded to him with the same smile.

“All right then,” he said. “Axel, Olivia. You go get Gabriel.”

Olivia nodded as well. “We’re on it, Jesse.”

Axel punched his fists together. “Let’s crash this party.”

“We’ll be back as soon as we can,” Jesse said, and with that, he, Reuben, and Petra retraced their steps back to the fake closet. On the way, Jesse heard the words of Gabriel the Warrior from the stage.

“You can’t go looking for greatness. Greatness is built one block at a time. With the right training and guidance, _anyone_ can become a hero. You just have to believe it.”

_Anyone can become a hero…_

In those words, Jesse took as much comfort as he could, wondering if he himself had what it took.

_I don’t need to be a hero for long. Just five minutes. Hopefully we’ll still be alive by then._

Jesse stopped at the door, taking a deep breath.

“Here goes nothing...” he muttered, and walked back into the darkness behind the basement door.

« … »

_Do iron golems eat people?_

It was a silly idea once he thought about it, but at the moment Lukas didn’t care. He just wanted to get as far away from that thing as possible.

He tried his best to keep his breathing quiet, reminding himself that it was only because he was in a chest that it seemed so loud. Still, he feared that the man outside would hear him, or worse—the monster.

“Now where was I?” said the man. Ivor, they’d called him. “Ah, yes.” he cleared his throat.

It was a good thing Ivor talked so much.

He started rambling something about everyone finally something or another. Lukas was too frazzled to pay much attention. Ivor was going to show them all, they were all going to see, his plan would—

_Wait—What did he say? Plan?_

Lukas’ curiosity finally got the better of him. Slow to move, he pushed the lid of the chest open with his head until he saw a small sliver of the room outside.

He peeked out right as Ivor was kneeling down by a large chest that sat right in front of the soul sand build. Lukas almost gasped when out of the chest, Ivor pulled out—

_The skull!_

It had been _right_ under their noses, and they were so distracted by that weird block that they—

Lukas lost his thought when to his shock, after the one, Ivor pulled out _two more_ Wither skulls.

“Wh—” Lukas almost muttered in surprise, but stopped himself. _What?_

Ivor had not _one_ Wither skull, but _three_. Why would he want _three_ Wither skulls?

_Three Wither skulls…_ Why did that sound so familiar?

Lukas took another look at the build of soul sand behind the secret bookcase door.

_Soul sand, and… **three** Wither skulls… That’s—_

Lukas’ eyes shot open when he realized where he recognized that specific construct of blocks, and where he remembered those words. It was from a book on buildable mobs.

_That’s the recipe for a Wither!_

He should have realized it sooner—Ivor threatening Jesse, stealing a Wither skull of all things, his ‘creepy villain lair’. It was more than obvious that he had been up to no good the whole time, but Lukas had assumed he was just a con, or—something else, but not _this_. This was in a whole different dimension of lunacy, and they were all right in the middle of it.

His heart just about stopped when Ivor placed the first skull onto the top left block of the structure as the reality of his place in all this hit him like a piston to the face.

_He’s building a Wither! He’s building a Wither! Holy crap, he’s building a—I have to get out of here! I have to—_

Before he could react however, Ivor stopped after placing the second Wither skull and pocketed the third.

“Now they’ll see,” Ivor mumbled. “Now they’ll see what kind of hero you _really_ are, Gabriel.”

_What… what is he talking about?_

Ivor grabbed a purple potion from a quartz pedestal in the middle of the room and started to walk off. Before Lukas could see where he was going, the iron golem turned in his direction. Lukas quickly ducked back into the chest, and Ivor’s footsteps got quieter until they had completely vanished.

_Holy crap!_ Lukas thought, cringing in the chest as the golem passed by. _This is bad! This is really bad!_

« … »

Jesse took one look back into the mass of books and precariously perched glass bottles and swallowed.

“You see Ivor?” he asked. He hoped he didn’t sound _too_ jittery.

Not sounding nervous at all, Petra guessed, “He must have gone out another way.”

Jesse wondered if she actually _wasn’t_ nervous, or if she was just better at faking it than he was. Either way, he envied her composure.

_Well, no sense waiting for the perfect opportunity._

“You cover the right,” Jesse said, “I’ll cover the left.”

“On it.”

Jesse checked ‘check the right side of the room’ off his mental to-do list and went straight to searching the left side, Reuben right on his tail. While the room really wasn’t _huge_ , the vast amount of clutter and shelves in tandem with his frazzled nerves made it seem like a maze.

“Lukas?” Jesse whispered. “Can you hear me... even though I’m whispering?”

“Jesse?” he heard from somewhere to his left and looked to see Lukas’ eyes peeking out of a large chest. “Is that you whispering super loudly?”

“Lukas!” Jesse whispered super loudly.

The iron golem—Ron, Jesse decided to name it since naming things made them less scary—was prowling around the open space in front of the weird block display. Jesse noticed him turn around, evidently deciding to check things out, so Jesse and Lukas ducked impulsively into their respective hiding places.

Meanwhile Reuben, Jesse noticed, was sniffing at a little potted poppy.

_Huh. I don’t remember that being there._

As soon as Ron passed, Jesse peek out again and asked, “Are you okay?”

Lukas’ head poked out again. “D—uhh… I’ve been worse,” he said, terror strung through his voice.

_Doubtful,_ Jesse thought.

“Good,” he said. Then he frowned and whisper-blasted, “Why did you run off and hide in a chest?!”

“I _panicked_!” Lukas whisper-shouted, sounding offended that he would ask such a thing. “Are you here to help or not?”

“Okay, just sit tight, Lukas. I’ll get you out.”

Lukas furrowed his brow at him and whisper-snapped at him, “You came back just to tell me that?!”

“It’s part of the plan,” Jesse lied, hoping Lukas would just take his word for it and calm down.

“‘Stay exactly where you are’ is a plan?!”

Jesse ignored him, noticing a potion on the shelf he was hiding behind. he snagged it and prepared to throw it.

“Wait,” Lukas stopped him. “What are you doing? You can’t throw that at him!”

Jesse lowered his arm. “Why not?”

“Because that’s—! You don’t know what that will do to him!

“It could slow him down,” Jesse argued.

“ _Yeah._ Or it could turn him invisible!”

“You got any better ideas?”

Lukas shook his head at him incredulously, then insistently whisper-yelled, “Yes! Do _nothing_! _Nothing_ would be better!”

Ron took a glance over at them and they ducked.

A few moments later, Jesse heard a quick, “Pst!” from behind him. He flinched and turned around to see Petra crouching there. “You find him?”

“Yeah, he’s over there hiding in a chest and making himself at home.”

Jesse pointed over to the chest where Lukas peeked his desperate blue eyes out again.

“Lukas, what are you doing?!” Petra whisper-demanded.

Lukas scowled and whisper-barked, “Crafting a cake!”

Jesse gestured and said a knowing, “See?”

Petra looked annoyed and grumbled, “Seriously Lukas?!” 

“You think _I’m_ ridiculous,” said Lukas, “Jesse was going to throw a random potion at it.”

Petra turned on Jesse and grumbled “Seriously Jesse?! Good grief, why are boys so—?!”

“Duck!” Jesse pulled her down as Ron decided to check up on them yet again.

As soon as he was gone, they both came out again.

“Okay,” Jesse said, “I’m gonna go in swinging.”

“With _what_?” Lukas questioned.

_Ugh, he’s worse than Olivia._

Jesse pulled out his shiny gold sword with a proud smile. Lukas looked nervous.

“Don’t take this the wrong way but... don’t do that. Just... just don’t.”

Jesse decided to take it the wrong way and frowned indignantly.

“Jesse, I admire your bravery,” said Petra, “but Lukas is right.”

“Any other bright ideas?” Lukas whispered.

Jesse looked to Petra who raised an eyebrow at him, then back to Lukas and shrugged.

Lukas stared at him quizzically before finally stating sarcastically, “I guess I could get used to living in a chest. At least I’d probably _starve_ to death before getting tired of the view.”

“Lukas, this is not the time for your sass!” Petra snapped.

It was a good thing iron golems were dumb as dirt.

Jesse was about tell Lukas to just make a run for it already when he glanced near the back of the room where he saw the iron golem… and _Reuben_.

_Reuben!_ He thought. He had to bite his lip to keep from shouting out to him, calling for him to get away from the golem. Thankfully he thought better of it before his instincts could kick in, and instead he poked Petra and pointed.

“ _Look_!” he whispered as urgently as he could.

Petra looked up and Lukas turned around in his box to see. They all watched with rapt attention as Reuben slowly shifted toward the golem, the little potted poppy on his head. Reuben, the smartest little piggy who ever lived, had slipped around to the side of the room and skirted the edge so that Ron would be looking away from them.

The golem looked down to Reuben, and Jesse prepared himself to run in and fight if he needed to. Reuben stared up at the monster. Eyes wide, he stood his ground, and with the little pot atop his little head, Reuben offered Ron the poppy.

Jesse couldn’t blink.

“Lukas…” Jesse whisper-murmured. “Get out of the chest slowly… and get ready to run.”

Lukas looked at him fearfully, but obeyed without question.

Ron stared at Reuben, for a moment not moving at all, until he looked into his hand and materialized out of nowhere another poppy. Reuben slipped the pot off his head and onto the ground, then sniffed at the flower in Ron’s hand.

Lukas slipped around behind them, and once he was out of sight behind their bookshelf, Jesse gave a quiet whistle, hoping Reuben would catch the signal. Sure enough, Reuben appeared around the corner a moment later. Jesse smiled.

“Okay,” said Lukas, “come on! Let’s go!”

The three of them made their way back to the stairs, and as soon as they were far enough away Jesse said enthusiastically, “Nice one, Reuben!”

Reuben oinked happily.

“Sorry for snapping off,” Lukas addressed Petra. “Thanks for coming back for me. I didn’t know if anybody was going to.”

“Hey, don’t thank me,” she said. “It was Jesse’s call.”

“What?” Lukas looked somewhat surprised. “Jesse—”

Lukas looked back down to him, and Jesse smiled. Lukas smiled back.

Jesse dashed up in front of him, happy that they were finally home free, and met Petra at the top. “Let’s get out of here!”

Reuben oinked in agreement.

“Actually,” Lukas said, and Jesse and Petra looked back to where Lukas had stopped on the stairs. “There’s something I need to tell you guys.”

Petra, seeming a bit tired, said, “If you’re about to get sappy, can it wait until we’re out of here?”

Lukas looked up at them, a grave look on his face, and simply said, “ _No_.”

Petra went quiet and Jesse blinked, suddenly feeling tense.

Lukas explained. “While I was stuck down here, I saw what Ivor was doing. That Wither skull you got for him wasn’t for decoration. He’s been collecting them to build a _Wither_.”

“But... a Wither…” Petra mused, “that’s—”

“One of the worst monsters there is!”

“Worst?” Jesse wondered. He knew they were bad news, but… “Like, worster than an iron golem?” he asked.

Lukas blinked at him. “Uh… yeah. A _lot_ worse than that.”

“Umm…” Jesse muttered, “like… _how_ worse?”

“Like, ‘target all living things with fireballs and explosions’ worse.”

Jesse just gaped at him.

_Oh._

That was… a LOT worse.

Could… such a monster even exist? How could such a monster be allowed to exist?

Jesse looked to Petra who wore the same look of shock, and he knew they were thinking the same thing.

This was _way_ more serious than they thought.

« … »

* * *

Two are better than one,  
because they have a good return for their labor:  
If either of them falls down,  
one can help the other up.  
But pity anyone who falls  
and has no one to help them up.  
— Ecclesiastes 4:9-10

#### Author’s Notes

_“Worst?” Jesse wondered. “Like, worster than a creeper?”  
Lukas blinked at him. “Okay, maybe not THAT bad.”_

Fun fact: It’s hard to tell with the lighting, but the potion Jesse throws in the game looks like a swiftness potion to me, and speed would definitely not be a good thing to give an iron golem that wants to kill you. :P

Also, in case anyone wonders why no one would think of the Wither sooner, a friendly reminder that the people in the Minecraft world don’t have a Minecraft Wiki to consult. :P When you actually live in a vast world and have to search out knowledge the hard way, it’s much harder to know literally everything.

\- Ron — Because I-ron. :P Yeah, Jesse is just as silly as me.

\- Reuben’s Distraction — In MCSM, the iron golem never specifically targets Reuben. In fact when Reuben squeals to distract him, he looks at him for a second and then looks right back to Jesse. This makes sense since in Minecraft, iron golems won’t attack animals. While in my version I imagine they could probably be commanded to, they’re not going to on their own and it’s likely that because Ivor wasn’t super specific, Reuben was just completely left out of the equation when he was ordered to attack. Good thing, too. Just one hit from an iron golem would kill him dead. XD

Hope you enjoyed! God bless! ^^

#### Choice Notes

\- Going Back for Lukas — This is one of those choices that’s always just been non-negotiable in my book, but like all of the significant choices, I still put significant thought into what would actually be best for the story. Unsurprisingly, it was still the way to go as the alternative it pretty boring, and avoiding spoilers in saying, what it effects later wasn’t important enough to merit making a choice just for that. :)

\- Why not do… ALL of them? — That conversation Jesse has with Lukas during the rescue has always been one of my favorite interactions. XD No matter what you do, it’s hilarious, and I didn’t want to lose a single line. Of course, I couldn’t just keep every single line, but I still fought as hard as I could to keep as much of it as possible without it dragging on and on, and I came out with this funny scene where they’re going back and forth all the while trying not to alert the brainless/OP security guard. X)

\- “Nothing would be better!” — Yes this was a nod the [! Silence is also a valid option.] thing. ;P

#### Glossary

\- Withers — A Wither is a highly destructive mob, created with soul sand and Wither skulls of course. It targets living mobs and destroys pretty much anything it touches. It also fires two kinds of fireballs, both of which explode and one of which (the blue variety) causes Wither sickness (or just ‘wither’).

\- Iron Golems — Made by placing a pumpkin on a T of iron blocks, iron golems are meant to act as defenders for villages. When they’re not mercilessly tearing apart zombies, they can be found handing out poppies to little children. Just to put in perspective how powerful iron golems are, one can kill a player without armor, in two hits (on normal difficulty of course). That means that since Jesse can actually get hit three times during this part of the game, if he does he really should be dead. XD Also, I guess they have really bad hearing.

\- Far Lands — I should have mentioned this in Chapter I but it seems I didn’t, so here you go. XD The Far Lands _were _(they’ve been removed since [at least in Java]) the boundaries of any Minecraft world, in which the world would start to break, the game would start glitching, and these giant obfuscated walls would form. I recommend looking them up if you haven’t seen them before, they’re actually really cool looking. :)__

____

____

\- Nitwits — Not important for you to know, but this was actually a funny double meaning because nitwits in Minecraft are basically worthless villagers. :P


	15. Chapter XIV – Groundbreaking

#### Foreword

Here we are, everyone! As of this chapter, you all here on Ao3 are _officially_ caught up to my readers on FFN! :D That means that come next chapter, you'll be on the same schedule as everyone else! Yay! Sadly that means you'll also be waiting two weeks between chapters instead of one, but don't worry! I'm still going to be striving all the more to get ahead, and hopefully be able to start posting weekly again. :)

Well, this one was a real doozy. Piecing this chapter together proved to be harder than you’d think. Even with this being one of the most important chapters in the story, I had such a hard time drumming up motivation for it that I didn’t feel like I would be able to do it justice. Pretty much the whole time I was writing it, I felt like I was slogging through at a snails pace and hardly making any progress. But somehow, with the help of the panic monster and endless loop of ‘Suspense’ (from the unofficial MCSM soundtrack) I was able to push through—and in pretty good time considering! :D

Enjoy!

* * *

Chapter XIV

#### Groundbreaking

««««« … »»»»»

“Dude, I dunno how I can be any clearer!” the tall boy grumbled in exasperation, evidently as frustrated as Gabriel himself. “What do you want me to do? Tell you charades-style?”

“I promise you,” Gabriel assured him, “that’s that _last_ thing I want you to do.”

He was hopeful that this would be the end of it, but unfortunately he had no such luck, the boy daring enough to actually press further.

“Four words; six syllables;” the boy continued, undeterred despite Gabriel’s best efforts to appease him. Gabriel slapped a hand to his forehead as this boy went on, “Sounds like... ‘Schmonster in the schmaschement.’”

_This is getting ridiculous._

He was trying to be patient with the boy and his friend, but he was making a complete spectacle of things, not to mention making no sense at all! Gabriel had seen the world. There was no such thing as a ‘metal monster’, and he’d seen enough of the building to know there _was_ no basement. Unfortunately it was much more likely that this cry for help was in actuality a cry for attention, and the crowd was starting to grow impatient with it.

“Next,” Gabriel said.

“Wait, just—” the girl with him tried to argue further when three more kids abruptly pushed their way to the front of the crowd.

“Jesse! Lukas!” she said, seeming excited to see them. “You’re okay!”

“Well that’s just fine,” Gabriel said, relieved, “Now we can all—”

“Gabriel, you have to help!” one of the new faces cut him off, a boy in green suspenders. “There’s a monster in the basement!”

Gabriel was afraid his patience had run out.

He sighed. “So I’ve heard,” Gabriel stated sternly, crossing his arms.

“No, this is a different monster!” the boy insisted.

_Well, isn’t **that** interesting._

“Oh?” he inquired rhetorically “And let me guess. This monster is bigger and badder than the last monster?”

The boy looked somewhat sheepish. “Uh… _yeah_?”

The assembly began giggling.

“Stop that giggling,” Gabriel ordered, turning to the crowd. “This is no laughing matter, whether it’s riddled with falsehoods or not.”

They stopped instantly, and Gabriel faced the group of kids again.

“Now, hold on just a minute,” he said, his tone deliberately austere. “If this is a joke, it isn’t funny.”

“I’m not messing around—” he explained, “we were down in the basement, and this guy attacked us!”

He seemed genuine enough, but—

_Wait_.

“I thought you said it was a metal monster that attacked you. Now it’s a person who attacked you?”

The boy spared his friends a look. “Well… a person too.”

“A super crazy person!” said the new girl.

“With potions!” said the other girl.

“And mushrooms!” inserted the black-haired boy. They gave him a look.

“I know this sounds ridiculous,” the first boy said. “but you have to listen to me! We’re all in danger!”

A bold claim. Gabriel raised an eyebrow.

“Right,” he said flatly. “Look, I don’t want to have to call security—”

“You don’t have to,” came a voice from the crowd, and the people parted to make way for three strong-looking security men.

“Sorry ‘bout that, your warriorness,” said the blonde man in charge, “It seems these troublemakers have been wreaking havoc all night.”

He eyed the group of kids, all of whom suddenly looked like they’d been caught red-handed.

“I see,” said Gabriel, crossing his arms. That cleared any remaining doubt.

“What? No, you have to listen!” the boy said, still trying to hold to his farce. “Somebody’s been building a—”

He and one of his friends were seized by the arm.

“All right everyone, nothin’ to see here,” the security man cut in, casually dragging the two behind him and heading for the way out. “Go back to your geeking out please. Thank you.”

The other two guys prodded the more compliant of the group out while a little pig followed behind them.

_A pig? Hm. How strange._

“Now then,” Gabriel addressed the gathering of people once more. Hopefully he could salvage this. “Any more questions?”

“ _I_ have a question for you,” said a voice from somewhere near the back of the crowd. A voice that—sounded… familiar. “Do you _really_ believe anyone can be great?”

“With enough hard work,” Gabriel said almost automatically as the person gradually made their way through the crowd, “yes.”

“Was that where I went wrong?” it asked. Finally the man pushed his way through to the front and blasted, “I simply didn’t WORK hard enough?!”

Gabriel suddenly realized why the voice was so familiar at the same time he laid eyes on an all too familiar face.

It… couldn’t be…

Gabriel felt his face go cold.

“Ivor?” he muttered in disbelief. “Is that really you?” He couldn’t believe his eyes. “What—What are you doing here?”

Ivor glowered up at him and said, more than a hint of resentment lacing his tone, “You should be asking yourself that.”

In that moment, it was as if everyone else in the whole room wasn’t there, and it was just the two of them. Just he, Gabriel, and the man before him. A man whom he hadn’t seen in a very… _very_ long time.

Ivor climbed the stage, his eyes fixed on Gabriel’s.

“Why don’t you tell them the _real_ story, Gabriel?” he spat.

Ivor continued to hold eye-contact for a painful amount of time, but Gabriel was loath to break it. His tone softened against his will as he somberly, regretfully murmured, “I see time has made you bitter.”

Now level to him, Ivor met him on the stage. “And it’s made _you_ an even bigger fool.”

« … »

“Jesse, what do we do?” Lukas asked through a whisper. 

Before Jesse could think of a response, the guy grabbing his arm spoke up, “If you wanna like, make my job easy for once, you could always do nothing. That would be nice.”

Jesse and Lukas shared a look.

The man who held him and Petra captive was the same usher guy who they’d sneaked past to get into the keynote. Apparently he wasn’t just an usher, but he was just as chill as ever. The guy didn’t even sound mad, which was nice, but they still had a major problem.

If Gabriel didn’t believe them, that meant _they_ had to stop Ivor. On their own. They just needed to get away from this guy first. But how?

Jesse glanced around to Axel and Olivia who both gave him looks of confusion and worry, but then he looked further back at Reuben trailing behind them.

Jesse gave a quick, quiet whistle, catching his little buddy’s attention. Jesse discreetly—hopefully—gestured to Reuben, praying he’d take the hint.

Reuben raised an eyebrow. _“What do you want **me** to do?”_ Jesse imagined him saying. _“I’m a pig.”_

_“Exactly!”_ he told him in his mind. _“You’re a pig, you can get away with anything! Can’t you do something?”_ Jesse gave him a pleading look.

Reuben’s eyes lit up as something seemed to click for him. Suddenly Reuben charged ahead and stopped in front of the usher. He squealed loudly to get his attention and butted his head into his leg.

“Hey—piggy!” the usher exclaimed, mistakenly letting go of Jesse and Petra in the process. “Shoo! Shoo! Get outta here!”

The usher then turned to Jesse and asked in a more calm tone. “Mind calling off your guard dog?”

Jesse crossed his arms, allowing himself to be far too easily offended by it. “Reuben is a pig, not a dog.”

The two other ushers found this amusing for some reason and chuckled. The blonde one turned on them and asked rather passive aggressively, “Uh, and would _you_ mind, like, doing your jobs or somethin’?”

The two ushers stepped forward to deal with Jesse’s guard pig as Reuben shook his little piggy tail at them, leaving Jesse’s other friends unguarded. Jesse looked around and slowly backed toward them.

As soon as he was close enough, Jesse whispered as softly as possible, “Get ready to run and follow me.”

Lukas and Petra nodded, while poor Olivia and Axel just looked at each other again.

Then, Jesse turned tail and booked it. His friends followed.

“Hey, where did they—” he heard the usher exclaim from behind him, “aw maaan, not again!”

“Sorry!” Jesse shouted back instinctively.

“Jesse!” Olivia cried out as they tore back toward the keynote. “What’s going on? What happened down there?”

“You know that weird build we found in Ivor’s lair?” he tried to explain as quickly as he could. “Yeah, he was building a Wither.”

“A Wither?” Olivia gasped.

Axel, already sounding out of breath, asked, “You mean one of those creepy bomb chucking monster things?”

“Uh…” Jesse looked to Lukas.

Lukas frowned and gasped out as he ran, “Yeah—One of those—‘creepy bomb-chucking monster-things’!”

“Those are like the most ultimate evil griefing weapon known to man!” said Axel.

“Somehow,” Olivia chipped in, “I get the feeling Ivor doesn’t plan on killing it to make a freacon beacon.”

Clearly Axel and Olivia knew more about it than he did, but he did _not_ like the sound of it any better coming from them than he did from Lukas.

“Come on!” Jesse urged on. “We’ve gotta stop Ivor!”

It wasn’t long, but as soon as Jesse found his way back into the crowded room, he was met with an alarming sight. Ivor already stood on the stage with Gabriel and walked toward the wall behind them. Jesse only now noticed the lever waiting there.

“I’m sorry this is how they had to learn the truth…” Ivor said, flicking the switch, “…but nothing built can last forever, _Gabriel_.”

The all but finished daunting structure of the Wither’s body rose up from the floor at the back of the stage.

“Gabriel!” Jesse shouted. “Stop him!”

“Ivor, no!” shouted Gabriel, immediately shooting into action.

Immediately wasn’t fast enough. In only a fragment of a moment, Ivor had placed the skull in the dead center of the build.

A shockwave felt from across the room sent Ivor _and_ Gabriel flying into the crowd. The blast completely decimated the stage, and even a few people in front were visibly hurt. The explosion was so devastating Jesse wondered how Ivor even survived being right next to it, but his attention was quickly turned back to the monster itself.

Gasps and yelps of fear and shock erupted from the onlookers as they backed away.

The security caught up to them and stopped just short of grabbing them again when they saw with their own eyes the scene before them.

“Creepers!” exclaimed their leader. “You—you weren’t joking!”

The three-headed skeletal form of the Wither now opened its soulless glowing eyes, letting out a deep inhuman growl.

Jesse watched as Ivor got back to his feet and commanded, “Creature—attack!”

The creature obeyed.

It released a ghastly shriek and rose into the air, looking down at its prey before firing off several balls of fire at once. Wait… not fire _balls_. Were those… _skulls_?

The people flew into a panic, scattering and screaming in a flurry, some trying to get away, others trying to hide, many frozen in fear and trembling. The usher meanwhile was still doing his job, and still somehow managing to sound incredibly calm considering the circumstances, as he tried to coax the many terrified citizens into evacuating the premises.

Jesse looked around to locate his friends who surprisingly were all still with him. That didn’t last long though. One of the Wither’s flaming projectiles hurtled toward them, and the whole group scattered. In a few ticks Jesse lost track of everyone.

He scrambled to catch his bearings as the world around him spun into chaos. He felt like the ground would fall out from beneath him and didn’t realize until it was almost too late…

The ground was actually shaking.

He stumbled and fell to his back as the blocks he stood on were yanked out from under him by an unseen force.

Jesse’s breathing quickened as he watched, all around him, whole chunks of the building ripped out and sucked toward the Wither. Tables and plants, pillars, and chunks of the floor were uprooted. They spiraled in the air around the monster where they were absorbed, creating a black, amorphous mass around itself.

Then, through the commotion all around him, Jesse heard one distinctive, panicked, “Oink!”

Jesse spun around, frantically trying to spot his friend.

“Reuben?!” he called out, but didn’t see him anywhere. “Reuben where are—?!”

Too late, his eye caught a glimpse of another flaming skull heading right for him. He only had time to gasp before he was—

Something heavy and blunt crashed into him from the side, slamming him to the ground. Jesse opened his eyes to see none other than Gabriel the Warrior him-freaking-self staring down at him.

“Are you all right?” his hero asked him.

“Y-Yeah…” Jesse murmured.

“Good.”

Gabriel wasted no time and took to the fray, charging toward the monster. He leaped, and then he struck.

The only discernible block from the original build, the orange glowing one, was now buried within Wither’s rib cage. When Gabriel’s sword met it, the block seemed to react, casting him back to the ground like _it_ had hit _him_.

_That… block,_ Jesse thought. _It’s like it… **repelled** him somehow._

“Gabriel!” Jesse shouted. He rushed to help him up but Gabriel stopped him, shooting to his feet.

“No! Stay away!” he ordered. “It’s after me, not you!”

Jesse looked around again to find his team had reassembled behind him. Jesse did a headcount. Olivia and Axel, Reuben, Petra… even Lukas. They were all there. They were all safe.

_Thank the Creator…_

“Stand back!” Gabriel called out. “I will slay this—”

Gabriel froze. He seemed stunned.

“The Command Block…” he murmured, eyeing the block embedded in the Wither’s chest.

_Command Block?_

Gabriel suddenly turned on Ivor, and with equal parts fury and terror he shouted, “Ivor, what have you done?!”

Ivor responded with a taunt and a smug little grin. “Look at him!” he said with a gesture. “The mighty Gabriel! Looks like true greatness is out of his reach.”

Gabriel turned to face Jesse’s group, and even though Jesse still believed Gabriel could do it, he recognized the defeated look of failure in his eyes. He had seen it enough.

“He may not be able to defeat this creature—but I can!”

As the ground quaked and the walls crumbled to particles, Jesse took a few steps back to herd his team away from danger, while Ivor took a few steps forward.

“Creature—retreat!”

The Wither… didn’t obey.

It turned to face him, one of its three heads now wearing one eye instead of two, bright purple instead of white, and a gruesome clump of blackened blocks melded around its skull. Unwavering.

Ivor cleared his throat and tried again. “Creature—retreat!”

Whatever point Ivor was trying to make, Jesse hoped he could make it. Ivor being taught a lesson was NOT worth the lives of him and his friends, or anyone else here.

“Retreat I said! Retreat!”

_It’s… it’s not working._

“Uhh… no need to be alarmed, my friends,” Ivor said, sounding alarmed. “I have an elixir that will destroy this creature.”

Ivor manifested a potion from his pocket, and Jesse thought he recognized it.

“Uh-oh…” Axel muttered.

_Uh-oh?_

Jesse turned around to face him. “Uh-oh? What do you m—” Jesse’s eyes widened in realization. “Oh no… Axel, you didn’t!”

Ivor threw the potion at the Command Block, making his mark with the accuracy of a skeleton—and it did nothing.

_Oh no… Axel, you **did**._

“Uh, what?” Ivor stammered, sounding beyond alarmed at this point. “Impossible... It should have worked—I took such care!”

“Axel, the potion!” Jesse demanded. “Give it to me! NOW!”

Axel didn’t hesitate, fumbling through his pocket until he clumsily pulled out the _real_ potion and shoved it into Jesse’s hands.

“You!” Ivor blasted at them. “I don’t think you realize what you’ve done!”

Jesse took aim, and with all his might, he threw that potion. He too hit his mark, but a tick before the potion collided, the Command Block was suddenly swallowed up in black shield of debris.

“It’s protecting itself!” Ivor exclaimed. “Without the Command Block exposed... the potion is—useless! It wasn’t supposed to happen like this!”

Ivor turned tail and ran.

“Ivor!” Gabriel shouted after him. “You coward, come back here!”

The creature shrieked and Gabriel flinched. He turned back to it and fear returned to his face.

“We—” he said quietly, then commanded at once, “We must leave!”

“Wait—” said Jesse, “you’re running away? But you just told Ivor—”

“ _Ivor_ was right about one thing—” said Gabriel. “I can’t defeat that thing. Not on my own.”

“We can help!” offered Jesse, looking back to his team. “Right?”

“Right!” agreed a slightly nervous Olivia and slightly less nervous Axel.

“You bet!” said Petra.

“Oink!” affirmed a determined Reuben.

“D—Uhhhh…” volunteered Lukas.

Gabriel shook his head. “No, you don’t understand. That is no ordinary Wither.” He pointed. “Trust me, there’s nothing we can do! Not now!” Gabriel rushed toward the exit and waved for them to follow. “Come! Follow me! We must seek sanctuary!”

Jesse watched the group take off after him and brought up the rear.

As they crossed the bridge over the moat, an ear-piercing, gurgling screech resounded through the air, threatening to shake his brain loose. Jesse stopped in his tracks. There, standing in the middle of that bridge, Jesse made the grave mistake of looking back.

Out through the massive glass dome that made up the ceiling of the convention center, what looked like a huge dark tentacle burst through. Shortly another one followed. The deafening sound of shattering glass could be heard all around as the creature, now easily five times the size it was before, rose up into the air.

It reared its ghastly heads, one at a time, each of them matched with a single soulless glowing purple eye, and the teeth and jaw of death itself.

Terror engulfed him as one of the heads of this world-shattering abomination before him slowly looked down.

The world seemed to go quiet as the Void itself met his eyes.

« … »

They have neither knowledge nor understanding,

they walk about in darkness;

all the foundations of the earth are shaken.

— Psalm 82:5

* * *

#### Author’s Notes

It’s fortunate they didn’t know the usher’s name, or that scene would have been a huge pain to write. XD And no, if you were wondering, I _didn’t_ just have them get escorted out for extra cool points. :P

So this scene originally suffered from what I’m going to call ‘The-People-Who-Can-Actually-Do-Something-About-What’s-Going-On-Just-Stand-Around-Doing-Nothing-For-No-Reason’ syndrome. I really should change the name, but suffice it to say, the problem was what the heck is stopping Jesse or his friends from just jumping Ivor and stopping him themselves? Realistically it’s just not as easy as it sounds, but when you know the world is in danger and you’re Jesse, it’s much more in character for you to just do something. I needed to incapacitate him somehow, and I remembered this idea I had forever ago. So, why not like, have the security actually show up and some point and, like, do their jobs? XD Makes sense since they kinda caused a huge scene outside and the usher clearly saw them go in. :P

\- No such thing as a ‘metal monster’ — to reiterate for anyone who may not understand this, Iron Golems are not considered ‘monsters’ as they are intended to be used to protect people. They _attack_ monsters. In fact I imagine it would be borderline unheard of for people in general to use one to attack other people. Gabriel is simply not connecting dots, as he’s also predisposed to them likely jesting for attention.

\- The Wither Explosion — So there’s this thing the Wither does when it’s spawned in where it sets off a massive explosion. And I mean _massive_. It’s actually the most powerful explosion in the game. In MCSM it was more of a _pop_ , and understandably so. I’ll be the first to say, standing right next to the Wither explosion would have killed Ivor dead. :P Without any armor, even standing a good distance away from the Wither could kill you. With Gabriel being fully armored a few blocks away, he would be fine, but Ivor? Yeah, he’d be dead. So why didn’t I change this? Well, I hated to actually nerf the Wither if I could further utilize its OPness, but I thought I was just going to have to call it suspension of disbelief like they did, or actually change what happens (have them duck out of the way or something) which would have made the scene clunkier.

Then my brother realized something. There’s also this thing in Minecraft called ‘blast protection’. ;P Blast protection, as it turns out, is very effective against a Wither explosion. With a set of enchanted blast protection IV _leather_ armor minus the helmet (essentially what Ivor is wearing) Ivor could seriously be _hugging_ the thing, and it it still wouldn’t kill him. XD (Really, we tried it!) Awesome, right?

I obviously couldn’t actually explain this in the story (or have Ivor hugging the Wither), but I addressed it to maybe explain later, or be intuitable. :)

Also, it’s actually a good thing that the Witherstorm is as docile as it is. A regular Wither would have killed them all in seconds. I credit most of that to Ivor’s programming.

\- Oops! — So, I made a continuity mistake in the last chapter that I realized was a problem in this chapter… so I fixed it. :P Yeah, I’m not gonna tell you what it was, but it was there and now it’s not. XP

\- ‘Axel didn’t hesitate’ — You see that part where it says, ‘Axel didn’t hesitate’? Take that, and burn it into your mind. Good. Now repeat to yourself one-hundred times, “There is no version of the story in which Axel hesitates and says, ‘but finders keepers’.” Good. Now remind yourself that Axel is a good character and the canon is not always right. Yes, good good…

#### Glossary

\- The Wither — If I didn’t explain this well enough in the story itself… I stink. :/ _Please_ let me know.

\- Command Block — Command Blocks are essentially what you use (or used to use) to program the game within the game. In the game itself, a single block isn’t very versatile on its own, but is likely much more powerful that it was even in MCSM. For example, in Minecraft a single Command Block can kill every living thing in the world with the push of a button, but to make a basic calculator, you’d need at least a hundred. This is because one block acts as a single line of code, so a single ‘command’, and ‘kill literally everything’ can be written as one command. It’s actually harder to select a single person to kill. o_o Therefore, power does not equal versatility.

That being said, in my headcanon, a Command Block in the MCSM world would be far less powerful, but MUCH more versatile. Instead of being a single line of code, it’s basically an entire computer that can be used to reprogram reality itself. O.o That’s basically the Command Block.


	16. Chapter XV – Petrified

#### Foreword

Here we go again! And guess what, y’all? Because I have a full Friday ahead of me, I’m posting this Thursday night so you’ll have it nice and early! ;D This chapter also marks the end of the first section of the story as I have it split up. :)

Also, y’all are OFFICIALLY caught up with everyone! Yay! :D I hope the two week waits aren’t too much of a wait for you guys, but if you want me to go faster, you can show your support by commenting here or reviewing on FFN!

Anyway, I hope you enjoy, and have a truly wonderful day everyone!

God bless!

* * *

Chapter XV

#### Petrified

««««« … »»»»»

Aiden couldn’t have seen it coming.

He had been simply minding his own business looking for Maya and Gill when out of nowhere, an explosion rang through the entire convention. Aiden stopped in his tracks, holding his breath as everyone went so quiet a creeper could be heard on tiptoe. Within the next few moments, he heard another more muted explosion, then another, and another.

They were coming from _inside_ the convention center.

_What’s going on in there?_

Before anyone knew what was happening, a panicked horde of people flooded out from the center in a frenzy, shoving and shouting to get through.

The dead quiet became pandemonium before Aiden could even register anything.

_What was that? What’s happening? Why are they running?_ All these thoughts flitted through his mind faster than he could process them, but what finally managed to jolt him from his stupor was the one thought that scared him most.

_Where’s Lukas?!_

Aiden shot into action. His eyes darted around as he looked for his best friend, suddenly terrified. He hadn’t seen Lukas since before the chicken trap spontaneously self-destructed.

“Run!” he heard dozens of frightened people yell from the crowd. “Monster!” they called, but what really caught his attention was the distinct cry of, “WITHER!”

_Wither?!_

Aiden’s heart could have stopped. That was the kind of thing kids would tell scary stories about over torchlight past their bedtime. The kind of thing they’d be afraid was hiding in their closet and would cry about until their parents assured them there was no way, since such monsters couldn’t spawn.

That would explain the explosions.

“Lukas!” Aiden shouted, ever more concerned.

Aiden fought through the mob of people and looked everywhere, but he couldn’t find him.

_Darn it, Lukas, where—?_

Aiden found himself shoved to the side by a panicked runner, barely staying on his feet and catching himself on a nearby booth.

“Hey!” he blasted on instinct, spinning around. “Watch where you’re—!”

A bloodcurdling, bone-rattling shriek of the most monstrous kind pierced through the cloud of panic, undoubtedly drawing the eyes of every person within a one-hundred block radius to the convention center once more.

Out from the top where the ornate glass dome covered the building, a gargantuan black void erupted out, rearing three giant heads.

Aiden froze when he saw it.

_What—in the—?_

That—THAT was no Wither. He didn’t know which of the deepest hottest layers of the Nether this thing had climbed out of, but _that_ was no simple _Wither_. _That_ was nothing short of a pure manifestation of everything dark and putrid. _That_ was an anathema.

“Lukas?” he murmured, shaking. He ignored the terror threatening to make him cower. He ignored the tremor through his body and the chill down his spine, and he charged forward once again. “LUKAS! Where are you?!”

_**Please** don’t be anywhere near that thing._

Finally he spotted him, running back toward the convention center as Aiden had been.

“Lukas!” Aiden ran to him.

As soon as Lukas saw him, the look of panic on his face diminished slightly.

“Aiden!” he shouted, meeting him halfway. “I’m so glad you’re okay!”

Aiden was about to agree when Lukas, sounding deeply worried, added out of nowhere, “Have you seen Jesse?”

Aiden blinked for the first time in what must have been minutes and impulsively frowned as he repeated in surprise, “ _Jesse_?”

« … »

The light from the eye of the creature engulfed him in a bright beam of purple, and Jesse felt his feet leave the ground.

Jesse stiffened, looking down at the bridge now a block below him.

“Wait! No no no no!” he yelped, shouting out, “Somebody help me!”

He couldn’t shout loud enough. The shrieking of the monster in tandem with the terrified screams of the crowd completely drowned him out.

Jesse flailed in an attempt to pull himself through the air, but it did little good. While he managed to work his way down slightly, it wasn’t nearly enough to get free. Still, Jesse fought.

With all his might he fought back against the pull of the Wither’s gaze, then Jesse spotted the top of a lamppost near him that was somehow holding. With one final thrust, he managed to grab onto it and held fast. He didn’t know how long he held on for, but his arms were starting to hurt. It was all he could do to keep telling himself over and over, again and again, _I can’t let them down. They need me. My friends need me. My friends… need…_

_My…_

As he was swallowed up in the hungry stare of the Wither, Jesse started to feel lightheaded and suddenly calmer.

_What’s… going on?_ He wondered. He… couldn’t remember.

_Where am I…?_

It was all a blur.

_… **Who** am I?_

He felt tired.

He vaguely noticed a blurry shape growing bigger in front of him when something snagged his arm, and just like that he was pulled down. He hit the ground and gasped for breath, looking back up to see a man dressed in blue on the ground with him… the… the usher! It was the usher! And _he_ was… he was Jesse.

_Holy crap, what was that?_ he shook his head. _What just happened?!_

Somehow he was able to piece together enough to realize that he had just—

“You… you saved me,” Jesse muttered.

The usher shot to his feet and wasted no time yanking Jesse up to his feet. “Don’t thank me, _run_! GO!”

The usher shoved him forward and Jesse did exactly as he was told, fumbling into a sprint.

_Don’t look back,_ he ordered himself. _Whatever you do, Jesse, don’t look back!_

As he ran, Jesse saw more than a few others also lifted off the ground and carried up into the sky and toward the monster. Among them, Jesse spotted—

_No way…_

The butcher thrashed around in the beam terrified as his booth fragmented to pieces below him. Before long, he was out of sight.

_Oh man…_ Jesse thought. _Gotta find my friends. Where are they—?_

“Jesse!” he heard his name shouted from somewhere inside the chaos, and just barely recognized the voice. It was… It was…

“Lukas!” Jesse called back.

Jesse spotted him running toward him. Someone was with him. It was—Aiden.

“Holy crap, Jesse!” Lukas gasped out. “You’re okay! When I saw you weren’t behind us I—Oh man, if I was still in that basement, I—” Lukas stammered, looking frazzled. “Thanks for coming back for me, Jesse. I wouldn’t be here without you.”

Despite the utter terror all around them, Jesse managed a smile and a quick nod, while Aiden managed a frown.

Aiden nudged Lukas, sounding scared and impatient. “Ahem.” 

“Right,” said Lukas. “Jesse, have you seen Maya and Gill?”

“No, I’m still looking for…” Jesse blanked. He held his head for a second.

_Shoot, what were their—?_ “Axel and Olivia!”

Lukas raised an eyebrow. “Jesse? Are you—?”

Before he could finish, a familiar voice cried out for him.

“Jesse!” she screamed, “Help me!”

Jesse spun around and found the source of the call a short ways away. Olivia struggled to keep her feet grounded, all the while fighting to keep a hold of Petra’s leg as she was lifted into the air by one of the monster’s tractor beams.

“Olivia! Petra!”

Jesse ran over and grabbed onto Petra’s other foot. Together the two of them were able to hold her down long enough for the monster to give up and move on.

Inertia sent all of them tumbling to the ground.

“Do we have everyone?” Jesse looked around, getting to his feet. Olivia and Petra were with him, and Lukas—and Aiden he supposed—came running as well. “Wait, where’s Axel?”

“Right here!” Jesse heard from his right and turned to see Axel running up to them again, Reuben held under his arm. “And I found Reuben!”

_Reuben!_ How had he forgotten? _That tractor beam is powerful…_

Gabriel appeared again, waving behind him a crowd of fearful civilians.

“Everyone, follow me!” he shouted over the chaos, stopping just long enough to gesture to Jesse and his friends. “We must get to my outpost!”

Gabriel didn’t wait another second before he took off again and the crowd gave chase. Jesse and his friends were right on his tail.

“Thanks for that just now,” Petra said as she caught up and ran alongside him.

Despite his scattered attention, Jesse managed, “Yeah, well, now we’re eve—”

“Incoming!”

Petra shoved Jesse to the side right as one of the flaming skulls plummeted into the street, blasting open a creeper-worthy hole.

_Orrr not._

Jesse shot back to his feet as Petra did the same. They spared one second to look at each other before they kept running without another word.

Gabriel led them through the streets and towards the gate out of town. Normally they would run away from monsters inside the town walls, not outside, but what was once a safe haven had quickly become anything but.

Right as Petra made it through the gate a little ways ahead of him, a stray fireskull hit the opening mechanism and the fence gate began to slide down. Jesse just barely managed to dive under it before it closed behind him.

Jesse pushed himself up, craning his head around to see the people who were behind him banging their fists against the wooden bars. His stomach lurched as he watched them all get sucked into the air by one of the purple beams, among them the lady from before, the one who had given them slime.

“Gah!” Jesse exclaimed, impulsively scooting back in fear. He got to his feet as fast as he could, one single thought in focus.

_I have to keep going. I have to catch up to my friends._

So through the forest, he ran. His second time running for his life in the dark wilderness tonight.

“Stay together, everyone!” Gabriel shouted distantly.

The noise was overwhelming, and it seemed no matter how far they ran, the monster followed right behind them. It was slow, but even at their fastest it still kept up.

The night sky was coal black, darker than Jesse had ever seen it before. It was as if the Wither had created a barrier between the surface and the atmosphere that even the nearly full moon couldn’t penetrate. The only thing lighting their path was the emissive beams sweeping the ground wherever the monster chose to look, and trees now set ablaze from the flaming skulls.

Jesse heard an alarmed shout and looked around to see the usher, the man who had saved him, caught in one of the tractor beams as well.

“Oh no!”

Jesse rushed to help but before he could get close enough, he was blown back by yet another explosion. And that was it. In the few seconds it took for him to get back up, the usher was carried into the air, too high for him to reach. There was nothing he could do, so Jesse kept running.

Heart racing, he spotted Axel and Olivia ahead. He kept running.

Another flaming skull blasted another hole in the ground directly in front of him. On pure instinct Jesse hurtled himself over it and landed on the other side in a roll. He kept running.

He’d never run so far and so fast in his whole life. He didn’t know he _could_ sprint for so long, _or_ that he could jump so far. Adrenaline was incredible.

A wall of trees created a fork in the forest, dividing the exodus into two groups.

“Everyone, keep going!” Gabriel called out. “We’ll meet up on the other side!”

Jesse followed Axel and Olivia to the right.

« … »

Aiden followed Lukas to the left. Lukas followed Gabriel the Warrior.

Nothing made sense. If it wasn’t so real, he’d think he were having a nightmare. How could this be happening? What could have caused this? He didn’t have time to wonder and yet he couldn’t stop himself. The world couldn’t actually be _ending_ … could it?

“There!” Gabriel the Warrior yelled, pointing ahead to where Aiden could just barely make out the shape of a large building beyond the thinning trees. “Just up ahead! We’re almost there!”

_Almost there… we’re almost there!_

Through the brief moment of hope, Aiden forgot to watch where he was going. He tripped, falling down and landing on his face. He didn’t have time to respond before he was lifted up against his will. Before he knew what was happening, the ground below was pulled away from him… or he was pulled away from _it_.

When his vision turned purple, he realized he’d been caught in one of the tractor beams.

“Lukas!” Aiden shouted. “Lukas HELP!”

But by the time Lukas saw him, it was already too late. Aiden reached out to him, he was just too far away.

“LUKAS!”

“AIDEN!”

Aiden screamed in terror as he was lifted even higher into the air, even farther away from the ground, and eventually Lukas was out of sight.

_No, no, this **can’t** be the end…_

The world was spinning, his stomach churning, his head hurting, and he couldn’t even tell up from down anymore.

_It just **can’t** be… I’m not… ready…_

The bright purple turned to a blinding white, then everything went black.

« … »

They were almost there! Wherever _there_ was. He didn’t know, but Jesse trusted Gabriel. At least there was that.

Just a few more—

The ground rumbled as one of the monster’s giant tendrils came down on the earth, causing the ground to quake. It quickly whipped back into the air and swiped in again for another shot. Jesse just barely managed to duck out of the way.

_Great,_ he thought. _It’s gotten smart enough to pack a punch!_

Another deafening shriek resounded, and Jesse had to cover his ears this time. It drowned out all other sound, and Jesse could only rely on his eyes for signals. Gabriel was waving for them to follow him into the building, but everyone who hadn’t gotten lost in the forest or taken by the beams scattered as the monster waved its tentacles and hurled fireskulls every which way.

Jesse caught up to Olivia and Axel and urged them toward the outpost, then spotted Petra already running toward Gabriel, Lukas a few blocks behind her.

“Go! Go! Go!” Jesse heard Gabriel shouting as they got close, ushering them inside where they were immediately met by a door in a small room.

Gabriel made his way to the back of the room where he pulled some levers by the door in sequence: Up, down, up, down, up. The door opened.

“The inner chamber is built entirely of obsidian,” Gabriel said as they made their way inside.

“That will stop the Wither?” asked Olivia.

“Definitely not!” he explained, “Obsidian wouldn’t even hold up against a normal Wither. No, it won’t stop it, but it should stall it.”

A loud thud could be heard against the obsidian wall as the building rumbled.

“But not for long,” Gabriel added.

Right behind them, one of the tentacles pushed its way in through the doorway and Gabriel immediately pulled out his diamond sword and slashed away at it, causing it to reel back.

“Hurry!” Gabriel shouted. “Get through the portal!”

Jesse turned around again to spot the obsidian portal in the center of the room. A Nether portal.

_Desperate times…_

The six of them together rushed up to it and Axel wasted no time in going through… but the portal frame was empty.

“Uh, something’s not right here,” said Axel.

“It needs to be lit!” Petra explained. “Does anyone have a flint and steel?”

Jesse blinked in realization.

_**I** have flint and steel!_

Thank the Creator for his random impulses to pocket random stuff!

Jesse pulled it out and struck the obsidian base.

Sounding panicked, Lukas urged him, “Hurry Jesse!”

_Come on, come on!_

Jesse struck again and with a warbling, whirring sound, the portal glowed to life.

“Everyone! Get in! NOW!” Petra shouted.

Olivia was the first in, with Axel hoisting Reuben right behind her. Lukas was just about to follow behind him when a cry of alarm called their attention back to Gabriel. He held onto the side of the door frame as the tentacle wrapped around him yanked back.

“Gabriel!” Jesse bolted to him, and halfway there he heard a loud cracking sound from above. He looked up where another tentacle breached through the ceiling and made a beeline for him.

“Jesse, look out!” Petra shouted, and shoved him forward. Not a second later she spun around to strike it and called back, “Go!”

Jesse did. He shot back to his feet and dashed over to Gabriel, grabbing him by his arms just as he lost his grip on the door frame. Jesse struggled, holding on as tight as he could until finally the tentacle slipped loose and retreated back outside. Jesse and Gabriel both fell to the ground.

Gabriel grunted as he pushed himself back up.

“Thank you,” he muttered.

Gabriel looked outside where dozens of people hid and ran for their lives, all of them terrified and completely unprepared for this devastation. Gabriel hit his knees.

“There are so many of them…” he murmured. “I-I can’t save them all.” Gabriel then turned to Jesse who gave him a sympathetic look. “I can’t stop this by myself.” he continued. “We need to find the others.”

Jesse spared a glance back at Petra who was holding her own, then looked back to Gabriel. “Others?”

“Soren’s been missing for years,” Gabriel explained, “but the others—you must seek them out.”

Jesse blinked in surprised and bit his lip.

_Wait… what is he…?_

Gabriel reached behind his back and pulled out an ornate-looking golden trinket. It had one deep blue stone in the middle with four other stones at the points forming a—a quincunx. A couple of the stones were glowing.

“Take this amulet,” said Gabriel, holding it out to Jesse. “It will help you locate the other members of the Order of the Stone. Take it, find the Order’s temple, and guard it with your life.”

Petra made her way over, and shortly Lukas followed right behind her.

“What? Why me?” Jesse stammered.

“You have shown yourself to be someone I can trust. I believe in you. Take the amulet—” Gabriel pushed it into his hands. “You can do this. Now go! Find the temple! The amulet will guide you!”

“You’re not coming with us?”

“No,” Gabriel said, “I must stay to help as many people as possible find their way.”

“And I’m staying too.” It was Petra who said it. Both Jesse and Lukas looked at her in disbelief. Gabriel just nodded at her and took back to the fray.

“You two,” she ordered, “go through the portal and meet up with the others. I’ll stay here and help Gabriel round up those people.”

_What? No—_

No, no, they were supposed to stay together. Before Jesse could object, however, there was another crash and the entire ceiling caved in when the tentacle returned.

“Go on, Jesse, go!” Petra shouted. “Get _through_ that portal, _now_!”

Jesse looked back to the portal. Lukas was already running toward it. Jesse shook his head. “No! I’m _not_ leaving without you!”

“Yes, you are,” she insisted. “The gang needs you, Jesse. Go through the portal.”

Another scream caught them off guard, and they both spun around. They saw Gabriel caught in one of the tractor beams now allowed in through the open ceiling. Petra made a run for him, but before she could get to him, another of the beams made its way in, catching her as well.

Jesse hesitated. He couldn’t save both of them. Unless… wait!

Jesse spun around to see Lukas standing by the portal, watching everything happen.

“Lukas,” Jesse shouted at him, “get Petra!”

Lukas made eye-contact, and Jesse took that as an affirmative. He couldn’t wait another second.

Jesse shoved the amulet into his pocket and ran to Gabriel’s aid, leaping up and grabbing him by the foot. With one hard yank, Jesse freed him and they tumbled to the floor.

“Thank you,” said Gabriel, but Jesse’s attention was quickly called away.

“Jesse!” he heard Petra call,

Jesse turned back around to see Petra still caught in the beam, and Lukas still by the portal staring up, seemingly frozen.

“Petra!” Jesse called out. “No!”

He tried to get to her, but out of nowhere, a giant black tentacle swung at him. Jesse was hit with the full force of one giant swinging tentacle, sending him flying. Jesse’s back slammed into something hard and his vision went purple.

« … »

The waves of death swirled about me;

the torrents of destruction overwhelmed me.

— 2 Samuel 22:5

* * *

#### Author’s Notes

Well, this one turned out to be both surprisingly very hard… and very easy to write. Just like the last one, this chapter came out significantly shorter than I expected. I presume for both that it’s because while a lot happens in them, it’s very fast paced and everything is going by pretty quickly. That being said, I hope that the general quality hasn’t suffered from the pacing.

\- Aiden — Not super important, but I wanted to note that Aiden IS technically seen inside the convention center in the game, but again, I’m headcanoning that if the Ocelots don’t win then they’re not going to be allowed inside. It would be easy to say even if they lose, that Aiden would have been one of the lucky few to snag a ticket anyway, but for my purposes that was obviously unnecessary. :P

#### Choice Notes

\- The First Real Choice — So this chapter contains what I think of as the first real choice in the game. Up to now, every choice has only effected dialogue with the most noteworthy event changing choice being the ‘go back for Lukas or go ask Gabriel for help’ choice. Still, even that only really effected the next scene, and nothing serious for the long run. This choice however, the choice to save Gabriel or Save Petra, is the first significant _game changing_ choice, and it was definitely a tough one to make. However, I think you’ll start to understand why I made the choice the way I did later. ;)

#### Glossary

\- Fireskulls — This was a term I coined because I got tired of writing ‘flaming skull’. In the game they’re actually just called… Wither skulls. So yeah, that wouldn’t have been confusing at all. :P


	17. Chapter XVI – Into the Fire

#### Foreword

Hello again! Sorry this one is a little late in the day, but hopefully you’ll forgive me. ^^ I think this chapter came out pretty cool, so please enjoy, and have a wonderful weekend! :D

* * *

Chapter XVI

#### Into the Fire

««««« … »»»»»

Even after Jesse’s back made impact, he kept falling backwards until he met the ground. The hard, rocky, _hot_ ground.

Jesse opened his eyes and in the corners of his vision, he saw lava spouts spewing the scalding stuff from pores in the ceiling. He pushed himself up and looked around at the jagged, hazardous terrain surrounding him. Despite the fire and lava everywhere, the distant fog enclosed the whole place in a cloud of darkness. The air was hot to his lungs and putrid to his sense of smell. The Nether was a wretched place.

Only when he saw Lukas on the ground beside him did he come back to the moment. He realized what he crashed into must have been him.

Jesse shook his head in an attempt to piece together what had just happened. He saved Gabriel from the tractor beam of that monster, he saw Petra, he tried to get to her, but… just like that she was gone—and Lukas…

Jesse stood to his feet and looked back just enough to see Lukas brushing himself off.

Lukas…

Jesse clenched his teeth.

“Where’s Petra?” asked Axel.

Axel didn’t know. He hadn’t been there. He’d gone through the portal earlier with Olivia. Before Jesse could think of what to say, Lukas spoke up first.

“We did everything we could,” he said.

Jesse blinked, then he scowled.

We? Had he just said ‘we’? Only thirty seconds ago he had stood there useless while Petra was sucked up to her death, and he had the _gall_ to claim that ‘ _we_ did everything we could’?

Axel gave him a perturbed look. “What are you saying?”

Jesse clenched his fists. Turning on Lukas, Jesse shouted in his face, “What is WRONG with you!?”

Lukas flinched back in fear. Jesse ignored his better nature and continued, “I _told_ you to get Petra!”

“What…?” Lukas murmured in disbelief, “No. You cannot…”

“Petra is still up there,” Jesse explained to them, still eyeing Lukas.

“You _cannot_ put that on me!” Lukas insisted.

“Jesse? What are you talking about?” asked Olivia, sounding worried and confused.

Jesse answered her. “He _froze_.”

“He _what_?” Axel spoke this time.

Lukas turned to him and tensed. “I—I got scared,” Lukas tried to explain himself, his face paling, and his excuses falling on deaf ears. “Just for a second, and—”

“You got scared?” Axel questioned, slowly advancing on him as Lukas cautiously backed away toward the ocean of lava behind him.

“It wasn’t my fault,” he insisted.

Axel’s expression turned livid, his tone remained dark but eerily level. “You got _scared_ , and it’s not your _fault_?”

Axel had a very grave point.

_“He has come through for me in tricky situations,”_ Petra had said. He doubted it then, and he doubted it now.

_Yeah, real useful in a pinch, huh Petra?_

Jesse should have saved her. What was he thinking? How could he have expected _Lukas_ to help her? The guy went and hid in a chest instead of running from an iron golem for crying out loud!

This time it was Olivia to intervene, stepping in front of Lukas and facing Axel. “Back off, Axel,” she said, arms crossed.

Axel barely acknowledged her. “We gotta go back,” he said, turning away from her and Lukas and walking toward the portal. Lukas looked relieved while Olivia now looked troubled.

“No!” she exclaimed, blocking Axel’s path again. “We just have to wait. Think about what you’re walking into!” she stammered hesitantly, “For all we know, Petra’s already—I mean, she could be—”

“Don’t say another word!” Axel blasted. Olivia flinched. Even Jesse was a bit shocked. Axel almost never raised his voice at anyone, and certainly never at Olivia.

“Get out of my way,” he said with a tone of finality, but Olivia stood her ground.

“Axel, no,” Olivia pleaded. “She just needs more time.”

Jesse… didn’t know what to do. He watched as two of his best friends took a stand against each other, Axel refusing to take no for an answer and Olivia refusing to budge. As they stood face to face in opposition, Jesse felt like he’d come face to face with his worst nightmare. It was hardly the first time Axel and Olivia had been at odds, but never before had the weight of their conflict felt _so_ heavy. Jesse felt as though siding with either of them would be a betrayal to the other, and there was no choice he could make that wouldn’t be a betrayal to himself.

It was hard to admit but part of him felt like… Olivia was right. Going back into that deathtrap would be asking to be killed, and… he couldn’t lose anyone else… but he would never forgive himself if he didn’t try. He couldn’t just stand by and wait, but he couldn’t abandon his friends in the Nether either.

Before Jesse could come to a decision, Lukas came running back over to the group. Pointing at the portal he exclaimed hopefully, “Hey! Look! That could be her!”

The portal moaned as it’s purple surface rippled and Jesse tensed.

Could it be?

“Come on…” he muttered, “come on!”

A warbling sound reverberated sonorously as a familiar face materialized before them and the person fell to the ground… but it _wasn’t_ Petra.

Jesse gasped as one of the large black tentacles shot out from the Nether portal, and the screams and squeal of his friends filled the air again.

As the tentacle swiped, Jesse dodged to the right on instinct. He fell to his face, then looked back in time to see the tentacle threatening to pancake him. He rolled out of the way and after smashing the ground where he was previously, the monster’s limb went crazy. It thrashed around, narrowly missing a few more of his panicked companions, and wrapped itself tightly around the portal frame.

The whole thing crumbled under the pressure. The portal flickered, and the tentacle quickly pulled back, but before it could bring itself back out, the portal died, leaving a part of the tentacle lying severed on the ground. Wriggling. _Twitching_. Jesse pushed himself to his feet, repelled by the disgusting sight.

Finally the tentacle stopped moving and all went quiet.

Axel walked over and stood agape in front of the now broken portal, barely seeming to notice the revolting thing at his feet as his face melted from a look of sheer disbelief into a doleful one. Then all eyes turned to the menace who caused all of this.

Jesse frowned. “Ivor.”

Ivor stood up, meeting Jesse’s stare with a glare of his own, and hatefully he murmured, “You ruined everything.”

Jesse narrowed his eyes. “ _What_?”

“Don’t pretend you don’t know, _thief_ ,” Ivor spat. “You stole my most valuable potion, and what would’ve been the ultimate proof!”

_Proof of what? That you’re a crazed lunatic?_

Jesse was so angry. Angry with this insane nutjob in front of him. Angry with Lukas. Angry with himself for failing to save Petra. And as Ivor’s lips kept flapping, Jesse only got angrier.

“Well? Nothing to say for yourself?” Ivor questioned. Then something in Jesse just snapped.

Instead of replying, Jesse walked up to Ivor and punched him.

Ivor looked shocked, then glowered at him again. “More needless violence. It’s solves nothing.”

Jesse just walked back to stand with his friends—and Lukas.

_Yeah, well it sure made me feel a lot better._

“Our friend is in trouble because of _you_. We’re trapped in the _Nether_ because of you!”

“Well, pinning blame isn’t exactly helping your chances of survival now, is it?”

“Yeah, you’d know a thing or two about survival, wouldn’t you?” Jesse scoffed. “You coward.”

“A coward, you say?” Ivor mused, “And what would you have had me do? Die heroically along with everyone else? Me? The one person who can do something about it?”

Jesse blinked, “Wait, what? What do you mean?”

“Oh whatever. I don’t expect a bunch of dimwitted kids like you be able to understand.”

Axel stamped a foot, addressing Jesse. “Why are we wasting time talking to this jerk? We have to go and get Petra!”

“And how are you going to do _that_?” Ivor questioned. “Even if the portal wasn’t destroyed, there’s nothing left up there! Nothing but that Witherstorm.”

Ivor took a few paces away, throwing his hands up in exasperation.

Jesse spared a look back at his team all gathered behind him. Axel looked disheartened. Olivia looked apprehensive, but resigned. Lukas just looked scared. Little—scaredy—ocelot.

Jesse sighed and reluctantly admitted, “He’s right. As much as it sucks to say, there’s no way we’re getting back. What we have to focus on now is finding that temple.” Jesse paused, staring down at the ground. “But… he didn’t tell me where to find it.”

Ivor rolled his eyes. “Ugh. Idiot.”

Jesse scowled at him but before he could speak, Ivor walked up to Jesse and pointed behind him and to his right.

He explained, “Through that tunnel is a network of mine carts built by the Order of the Stone. Follow it, and the first Nether portal you find will take you straight to the Order’s temple.”

Wait, he’s… helping us?

Ivor concluded, “It’s your only way out.”

_How does **he** know all this?_

Ivor didn’t exactly strike him as a superfan, but… what did it even matter if it got them out of this alive?

Jesse raised an eyebrow. “What about you?”

Ivor raised one too. “What _about_ me?”

“How will you get out of here?”

“I’ll use my imagination,” Ivor dismissed him, pulling a grayish potion from his pocket. “I would wish you luck, but luck won’t carry you through the Nether,” he said, then drank the potion. “You have my _sympathies_.”

The very next moment, Ivor had vanished before their eyes, leaving nothing but the empty bottle on the ground in his place.

“And a bit of advice…” Ivor’s voice issued once more. “DON’T provoke the _pigmen_.”

Jesse squinted, curious. What was _that_ supposed to mean? Was he _actually_ trying to scare them?

“Uhh… guys?” Lukas muttered.

Jesse heard a high-pitched moan that almost sounded like it was coming from inside his head, but he could still somehow tell that it was coming from behind him. Jesse slowly turned around to see something huge and white rising up from behind the rock enclosure.

_This_ monster he recognized.

“Ghast!” Jesse shouted, right as the creature opened its tear-stained eyes to reveal its blood-red irises staring down at them.

All of them let out frightened gasps and Jesse shouted, “Run!”

Jesse took off and his friends—and Lukas—chased after him. Not a moment too soon, as he heard the ghast screech, followed immediately by the sound of an explosion directly behind him. The ghast’s fireball just missed them, and Jesse couldn’t help but notice the crater it made was significantly smaller than the ones caused by what was now called the Witherstorm.

Jesse ran through the tunnel Ivor had pointed out and noticed an alcove to the right.

“Over here!” he shouted, taking the slight detour in hopes of losing the ghast. The five of them ducked into it, and sure enough, the moans of the ghast seemed to get quieter.

Jesse did a quick headcount. They were all here—except… “Wait! Where’s—”

He heard Reuben squeal, and running up to him, Reuben pushed his big pink snout against him. His eye was still blackened from when he was hurt in the forest.

“There you are. You okay, buddy?” he asked.

Reuben gave him an oink. He was as okay as could be expected. Jesse gave him a pat on the head.

“Is the ghast still there?”

Jesse peeked around the corner. It seemed the ghast had wandered off somewhere, the only thing in its place a single pink pigman. It’s appearance was… underwhelming. Aside from the somewhat creepiness of what looked to be foliage of some kind growing along its body, it looked… well… bored. It barely moved and just looked around like any regular pig in the Overworld. It had a gold sword, but so did Jesse. It even made clear eye contact with him, but whether it was too lazy or it didn’t care to, it didn’t so much as blink. In fact, it didn’t seem interested in doing much of anything.

He wasn’t sure why he was surprised that Ivor had been pulling their leg.

“Nah, it’s just a pigman, we’re good.”

Lukas flinched. “A pigman? Did you say pigman? As in _zombie_ pigmen?”

“Yeah?”

Lukas whimpered, and Jesse raised an eyebrow.

“You don’t _seriously_ believe Ivor,” said Olivia. “You know he was most likely just trying to scare us.”

Axel rolled his eyes. “Is there a limit to your wimpiness?”

“No, not _Ivor_ ,” Lukas whispered, “ _Petra_! She told me about them. She said they were potentially the most dangerous monsters in the Nether.”

“If Petra were _here_ , she could tell us that herself,” Axel sneered.

Olivia peered over Jesse’s shoulder as he looked back out at the pigman now snort-sniffing its sword.

“Those guys? Really?” Jesse wondered. “You mean Ivor wasn’t lying?”

“But it looks so tired,” said Olivia. “And lazy.”

Lukas, now peeking over Olivia’s shoulder, cautiously murmured, “Let’s just try to stay as far away from them as we can.”

“We don’t need _you_ to tell us that,” grumbled Axel.

Jesse, still watching the pigman curiously, said, “Let’s try to go around them.”

“Good idea, Jesse,” agreed Axel. 

Jesse was about to do just that, when he again heard the same eerie whining of a ghast. Another one? Or was it the same one? Jesse didn’t know or care.

Jesse turned around again to see the ghast, a short ways away, spit another ball of fire at them.

“DUCK!” Jesse yelled. They all managed to avoid the fireball, but instead of hitting them it flew past them and landed right at the feet of the pigman.

The pigman snorted in a raged surprise, spinning around, seeming shocked. Then it looked up away from them, and turned its attention instead to the ghast. Jesse now noticed that the ghast had completely forgotten about them, also staring at the pigman and looking pale even for a ghast.

The pigman let out what Jesse could only describe as a pig-like war cry, its face now wrought with fury. In response, two, three, and then more cries followed, some distant, echoing through the open air, and others frighteningly close. Jesse spotted three pigmen drop in from the ceiling, then more emerged from crevices in the walls. Jesse spun around when he heard one near to him, and saw several more climbing up from an island below.

The lone pigman was soon anything but, as the pigmen seemed to be flooding in from anywhere they could. In a matter of seconds, an army of zombie pigmen had materialized, rallying around their summoner.

The herd charged forward and the ghast screamed. It tried to get away, but no sooner had it escaped the army’s range, a few chicken-sized zombie pigmen flew past them.

Jesse had thought regular chicken-sized zombies were deadly, but these were downright horrifying. He watched in shock as each one jumped into the waiting hands of one of the larger pigmen and were hurled like snowballs at the ghast. Each one on point grabbed onto one of the ghast’s tentacles, weighing it down as they bit into it.

The ghast screamed as though in pain until it was close enough to the ground that the army below it, all climbing each other to get higher, jumped up and weighed it down the rest of the way. The ghast seemed to beg for mercy, but the pigmen ruthlessly pummeled it, bludgeoning it until its cries stopped. The ghast didn’t last ten seconds, and it never stood a chance.

Jesse never thought in a million years that he would have felt bad for a ghast.

_I would take a hundred chicken-zombies AND zombie-chickens over **those** any day!_

Once they were finished with the ghast, the pigmen turned… and looked right at them. He wouldn’t have thought it possible in the Nether, but Jesse’s face went cold.

“Run,” Jesse squeaked out.

The pigmen howled and charged toward them.

“Run, run, RUN!” he shouted, spinning around and rushing them back through the tunnel, and run they did. They ran like mad, Jesse right behind them, and the massive horde of angry pigmen right behind _him_.

Just ahead, he spotted the minecarts Ivor had been talking about. There were four tracks, each with a different valuable mineral block above them. They each hopped into one the five carts lined up on the first track, the one with the emerald block, and Jesse being last got the cart in front. He looked around and flicked what he desperately hoped was the go switch on the ground.

Luckily it worked, and they were shooting down the track in no time at all. Jesse looked behind him to see everyone had made it on just fine, while the pigmen were running down the track to catch them. Soon enough, they were out of sight.

Jesse took a deep breath.

Right as he was starting to think this ride might not be so bad, the tunnel let out into a thin, one-block-wide bridge, below them an ocean of lava.

“Uhh… don’t look down,” Jesse said.

Then he saw that the pigmen behind them weren’t the only ones who’d gotten the memo, as dozens of them gathered along the edges of the surrounding islands, and they were still angry.

“Don’t look left or right either.”

_They can’t get to us, right?_ he thought. _They would have to be able to fly, or swim through lava… They can’t fly, can they?_

“In fact, maybe it would be best if you just covered your eyes and didn’t look anywhere.”

Then Jesse saw what was _ahead_ of them.

“Oh, man!” Jesse covered his eyes.

“Oh, that’s a drop!” Lukas fearfully babbled. “That is very, very much a drop!”

“What are you talking about, new guy?” asked Axel. “What drrrr—Oh crap!” he exclaimed. “You weren’t kidding!”

Practically on instinct Jesse shouted, “Everybody, hold on!”

Suddenly Jesse felt like he was falling at high speed and took his own advice to hold on as tight as freaking possible. Jesse felt the cart lurch as the track leveled out again.

“Whew,” Jesse sighed. “Okay, I think we’re—”

THUNK.

A pigman fell from above them and landed on the track in front of them. The crazy hog let out a loud grunt and charged them with its gold sword at the ready.

“GAH!” 

Jesse whipped out his own sword and impulsively slashed at it, somehow managing to knock it off the track and into the lava below. Jesse couldn’t help but notice that the pigman didn’t burn, instead, it stayed afloat in the scalding lava pool.

They… _could_ swim in lava. Nice.

_Well, at least there’s no way they can get to us up—_

The track met the land, and there several more of the angry pigs instantly became aware of their presence.

_…here._

The horde raced toward them from every angle, including ahead of them.

“Duck!” Lukas yelled, and Jesse looked just in time to see a sharp decline in the ceiling. Jesse ducked, and shortly after the ceiling rose back up. No more pigmen though. Saved by the roof.

“Okay,” Axel said, “so I’m not the only one seeing that we’re running out of track, right?”

Just ahead, a curtain of lava poured out over the track.

“No!” Lukas yelped.

“Good!”

_What kind of sick minecart system is this?! Why would the Order build something like this?_

“Jesse! That switch!” Olivia pointed ahead where Jesse spotted a lever on the side of the track.

Ignoring his rapidly pulsing heart, Jesse leaned out of the cart and reached outward. “Ohhh arms don’t fail me now…”

Jesse made his mark, but hitting a lever at top speed hurt a lot more than he thought it would. It still was far preferable to burning alive in lava. The carts jolted to a stop right in front of the lava curtain, and Jesse could feel the heat from it on his skin.

_That was TOO close._

The carts began to lower down to the track that continued underneath the lavafall.

Jesse sighed. “Haha, wow. I thought something really bad was going to happen there but, heh, I guess everything’s going to be just f...”

Jesse spoke too soon. Right as the carts started moving again, the track started shifting, twisting and turning until all the carts were split up and redirected every which way.

“Woah!” Jesse gasped, and his friends all reacted the same.

“Jesse!”

“No!”

“Woah!”

“Wait!”

“Oh, man!”

“Oink!”

Before he knew what was happening, Jesse was riding solo down a tall and narrow corridor with still nothing but lava below him.

“Uhhhhhhh, Axel? Olivia? Reuben?” Jesse heard no answer and gulped. “Lukas?”

Jesse heard a frightened squeal—no, it wasn’t Lukas—and turned to see below him to the right and on a different track, Reuben squirming as a pigman had invaded his cart, picking him up.

“Hey! Leave Reuben alone!”

The two tracks converged—kind of. Jesse’s track turned so it was directly above Reuben’s, and then dropped. Jesse yelped—he definitely didn’t squeal. His cart landed straight on the track below, right in front of Reuben’s cart. Jesse turned around and met the gruesome creature standing in the cart face to face for the first time. The pigman looked _much_ scarier up close, especially now that he could see its partially exposed ribs and skull.

Jesse forced aside his fear by gripping his anger and grabbing Reuben by his feet.

“Let—him—go you—ugly rotten overgrown porkchop!”

The pigman yanked him back and protectively held Reuben out of his reach. Did the monster actually think it was _rescuing_ him? That was… weird.

Reuben managed struggle free and leaped into Jesse’s cart, knocking Jesse down into it. The pigman looked befuddled for a second, and Jesse wasted no time. He reached to grab the side of the pigman’s cart and with all his might, pulled it sideways. The cart overturned, falling down into the lava below and taking its passenger with it.

“Whew… Okay Reuben, remember when I said it was going to be just fine before? I know I was wrong then, but I have a _very_ good feeling about this time—”

Reuben reeled back in fear, giving another squeal. Jesse spun around right as another ghast flew directly overhead.

“EEEP!” Jesse—didn’t scream. It was more of a ‘surprised gasp’.

The ghast fired at them, only to blow up the track directly behind them. Soon it was gone, but Jesse looked ahead to see the track going up again. It went up, and it went up… and it went up.

“This-is-bad, this-is-bad, this-is-bad…”

Jesse held on tight.

It continued to rise up into the air until they were suddenly airborne. Jesse’s heart skipped a few beats and he screamed. He could swear he blacked out for a second because he wasn’t fully aware of how long they were up in the air, only that the cart came crashing back down to the track. The cart slammed into something, and Jesse looked up to see the faces of all of his friends—and Lukas—simultaneously turn to see him.

“Is…” Jesse gasped for breath. “…Is everyone okay?”

There was a long moment of silence before finally Axel spoke up. “I mean I’m not dead. I guess that’s pretty good.”

“Ditto,” agreed Olivia. “Ditto with the ‘not dead’.”

“I just can’t believe Petra comes down here all the time,” Lukas said, his voice quivering. “This place is _awful_.”

All went quiet again for a moment until Lukas spoke up again, sounding somewhat playful, “Heh… your throat’s going to be sore later, Axel.”

“Why?” Axel, who was now in front, questioned.

“I’m just saying…” Lukas teased, “Wasn’t that you doing all that screaming before? Sounded like you were really shredding your larynx.”

“Oh yeah, I heard that too,” Olivia said. “Really high-pitched? Kind of like a squeaky piston?”

Axel turned around to frown at them. “What? No, shut up.”

“Never mind,” Lukas shrugged. “Must’ve been something else.”

Jesse was usually all for making light of heavy situations. Normally, he would be all over it, but… they were talking about him.

“Yeah, well,” Jesse said, rubbing the back of his head. “you know how Reuben can get.”

Lukas craned his head around to look at him and Reuben grumbled at him in self-defense, jabbing an accusatory snout at him.

“Pffft what?” Jesse stammered. “No, _you_ —screamed... like a piglet… is who did the—piglet-like—screaming.”

Lukas gave him a look and he couldn’t tell if it was meant to be judgmental, or amused. Jesse decided to ignore it.

Finally the minecart slowed and came to a stop behind a fence.

Jesse climbed out, happy for his feet to be on solid ground again. The rest of them dismounted their carts as well, and they all took a minute to catch their breath. He could finally breathe again, however uncomfortably warm the air might be.

Jesse made his way up a maroon brick staircase that led up to a sort of gazebo type structure, where he noticed dozens of other tracks from every direction led into the downstairs area they’d just come from.

“Wow,” Jesse marveled, “look at this place!”

“All these tracks converge at this point,” said Olivia. “You could probably get anywhere in the world from here.”

Then Jesse saw it, in the middle of the platform, the dark obsidian frame that held a vortex of a mysterious purple substance.

Jesse felt a surge of hope as he exclaimed, “There’s the portal!”

“That’s our way out,” Axel said, making his way up to it.

“It must lead back to the surface,” Olivia guessed.

Then Lukas added, “The surface is also where that creature is.”

Axel stared cautiously into the portal for a long moment. Jesse watched him, curious if Axel was actually brave enough. Would he actually do it?

“He’s right,” Jesse said, wondering how Axel would respond. “We have no idea what we’re walking into. It could be dangerous.”

Everyone looked to Jesse, including Axel, but his big lug of a friend turned back to the portal once more, taking a determined stance.

“Thanks for being so brave, Axel,” said Lukas, undoubtedly trying to egg him on.

“All right,” said Axel, “I’m gonna go. I’m going. I’m going right now.” Axel looked back at Jesse with a thinly veiled pleading expression, as if he were silently begging him to save him. “Like _right_ , right now. … I just need to make sure I have everything I need.”

Axel boondoggled by feeling around in his pockets. Jesse knew what he was doing. Axel wanted him to say, ‘No, I’ll go Axel. Really, it’s no biggie.’

Instead Jesse smiled and assured him, “You can do it, Axel.”

Axel smiled, looking determined again, and said, “That’s right, I can do it!” he turned to the portal once more. “All right, here I go.” then he looked back at Jesse one last time. “Thanks, Jesse.”

Jesse smiled. “Right behind you, buddy.”

“Be safe up there, Axel,” Olivia entreated, sounding more than a little concerned.

“Ready or not, here I come.” Axel walked in, and just like that he disappeared. Now it was Jesse’s turn.

What would await them on the other side? More monsters? The temple? The Witherstorm?

It didn’t matter. There was no sense in worrying about it, so Jesse silenced the apprehensive empty feeling in his stomach.

Jesse took a deep breath, then he stepped through.

« … »

“Do not give that which is holy to dogs, and do not throw your pearls before pigs, for they will trample them under their feet, and turn and tear you to pieces.”

— Matthew 7:6

* * *

#### Author’s Notes

So, fun fact, the first scene of this chapter up to the point where Ivor shows up was the first scene I ever wrote for Set in Stone. :) So much of it had to change that it’s hardly the same scene anymore, but it’s still special to me for that reason. ^^ Especially since, it shouldn’t be a surprise, it’s one of my favorite scenes in the entire game. To see this whole argument unfold in the most heated atmosphere possible after everyone’s world has just been shattered is such a tense and heavy thing, and I really hope I was able to capture that.

Anyways, there you have it. Sadly this one was a little rushed due to… nah, I’ve got no excuses. :P I was just a bit lazy, and busy over the past couple weeks, so I had time but I didn’t manage it very well. Oops. :} I’ll try to be better about that next time, but until then I hope you enjoyed! :) Peace out!

\- Why all the pigmen? — I remember thinking of MCSM as an exploration of Minecraft as a world, and I always thought it was a missed opportunity that they never did anything with pigmen. (baring the one blink-and-miss-it reference to them in episode 8) Zombie pigmen, to me, are actually one of the most iconic mobs in Minecraft for how they dominate the Nether and being one of the oldest, most interesting mobs for their behavior, I personally would put them up there with Endermen as far as mystique goes. I feel like most people probably don’t fully know or appreciate the history behind them, and since the new Mojang flippin’ TOOK THEM OUT OF THE GAME—*BSODs*—Sorry. I’ll try to contain my rage…

Since they have been ‘ship-of-Theseused’ out of the game, I felt an even greater need to explore them in SiS. Hopefully you’ll like it. ;D

\- Where are all the ghasts? — Aside from pigmen just being cool though, ghasts don’t chase players (if you ask me it’s part of what sets them aside from other monsters) so it didn’t make sense for them to be chasing them everywhere. (And where in the world did that skeleton come from? XD You _can_ find skeletons in the Nether, but it had no reason to be there. The pigman on the other hand did. ;P) Also, I think it’s a bit strange that the only mob they even have pose a threat in the Nether is the ghasts. Like, yeah, they’re scary, sure, but what about magma cubes or, y’know, PIGMEN? Yeah, okay, so Magma Cubes aren’t THAT big of a threat, but to be honest ghasts really aren’t hard to avoid either since… they don’t follow you the way they do in this game. XD

#### Choice Notes

\- Reaction — This was one of those choices that, when actually playing, I like to be as nice as possible to Lukas because I know exactly what he’s going through and can’t imagine how hard it would actually be to be in a situation like that, so I sympathize with him and feel for him deeply. :( Obviously though, when writing for characters who are also there and caught up in the heat of the moment, you can’t just do the ‘best’ thing, you have to do the most ‘in character’ thing. When I brainstormed this years ago, I decided that there actually wasn’t a choice in the game that did Jesse’s reaction to this justice. They were cool, but not emotionally heartfelt enough. The choice was basically to defend yourself, or put all of the blame on Lukas. Obviously with my changes it makes more sense for Jesse to be angry with him, but even without that, the closest he comes to having a genuine emotional reaction to it is the choice you can make where he forces Lukas to explain what happened, and I just can’t see Jesse being that sadistic even being so angry with him. That said, even if it wasn’t Jesse would take the loss of one of his friends _very_ hard, so I wanted to show that. He also feels responsible and like he’s failed her, but like all human beings sometimes that comes out as anger toward other people.

#### Glossary

\- Ghasts — Ghasts are giant ghost like creatures that spit fireballs. Their sorrow filled cries can be heard from great distances. Their sounds travel strangely, so if you can hear them at all, they sound like they’re right there next to you. They don’t get any quieter with distance.

\- Pigmen — Hopefully I explained them well enough in the chapter, but there is one thing I couldn’t really explain in the chapter that I’ll explain. Before I say it though, it’s worth noting that this is all technically outdated information since—as I’ve mentioned before—zombie pigmen have since been (disrespectfully) replaced. :[

Something that pigmen have is a thing called ‘universal anger’. Basically if anything ticks one of them off, it will target that player or mob first, and after eliminating it, any nearby players will immediately become guilty by association. Then they’d enter what I’ll call a ‘blind rage’ mode that would last anywhere from 20 seconds to 27 minutes, and in which they would hunt and kill any player who got within their range of detection. I believe it was fixed at some point, but I’m pretty sure there was even a version of the game where they could accidentally fall and hurt themselves, and they would get mad at you for it. :P Pigmen are VERY temperamental. All that in mind, that’s probably why Ivor told them to be careful not to provoke them. He didn’t want to have to deal with them. XD


	18. Chapter XVII – The Enemy of My Friend

#### Foreword

Wow. I’m actually amazed. I can’t believe we’re already here. Well, I suppose I’ll let the chapter speak for itself this time, and save my comments for the end. :)

Enjoy!

* * *

Chapter XVII

#### The Enemy of my Friend

««««« … »»»»»

Everything went black—as was expected when one closed their eyes tight. The sudden change from the sweltering heat of the Nether to the bitter cold of the night air was such a shock that Jesse winced. If that wasn’t surprising enough, he felt something wet spatter across his face and nearly fell backwards. When he opened his eyes, he smiled at the sight.

Axel sat laughing in a pool of water, splashing water everywhere.

“I never thought I’d be so happy to see water,” Axel said happily, then looked up at Jesse and threw more water his way. Jesse dodged, but less out of surprise this time and more out of playful resistance.

After the moment it took to adapt, it felt so good to feel the Overworld breeze on his skin. The water came up to his knees when he stepped into it, and as soon as he did he wanted to sit down and splash around too. He _would_ have… but there was one problem. It was still nighttime.

It was common knowledge that travel through the Nether was faster than in the Overworld, but was it possible that time passed faster as well? The moon had still just barely peaked, but he could swear they’d been in the Nether all night. Could it have been a whole day, or had everything happened so fast he only _felt_ like it had been hours? Had their whole world really been torn to shreds in mere minutes?

It was… still sinking in.

Olivia and Lukas walked out of the portal next and took in their surroundings. Olivia took in a breath of the fresh air with a smile, and Lukas… well, so as not to do anything he’d regret, Jesse thought it best that he just ignore Lukas for the time being. Reuben on the other hand, Jesse noticed go straight over with Axel to play around in the water.

They were in a forested area and the small lagoon they stood in spilled over the edge of a cliffside where moonlight spilled in as well. Jesse spotted a tiny pathway of stairs at the edge of the pool and he followed them out into the open. He was relieved to see there was no Witherstorm in sight. However he couldn’t help but notice that there was no _temple_ in sight either.

“Where are we?” Olivia asked.

Jesse looked around some more. “In the dark, in the middle of nowhere.”

“Maybe we should bed down for the night,” said Lukas. “It’s dangerous to be out when it’s this dark.”

Axel met back up with them, a soaking mess. Well, they were all a mess right now, really.

“I thought we were headed toward a temple,” he said.

Olivia answered him. “We’re looking for a giant building. It should be pretty obvious.”

“Ivor said—” Lukas tried to interject, but Axel interrupted.

“Oh, _Ivor_ said…” Axel drawled in a sarcastic tone, “well then maybe _this_ is the temple.” He paused, then sneered, “I’m being sarcastic.”

“Axel... come on,” Olivia impatiently reprimanded.

Axel defended himself. “He called me stupid.”

“ _No_ , I _didn’t_ ,” Lukas looked incredulous as he defended himself right back.

“But you wanted to.”

“No I didn’t.”

“Huh, did you say something?” Axel feigned deafness.

_Oh, this is getting stupid…_

Jesse mistakenly intervened before his thought had finished forming. “We have to build—uh...”

Axel tried to finish his thought. “Uhhhh...”

“Shelter,” Jesse finished.

“Shelter!” Axel finished too. “I was going to say shelter.”

“We have to build a shelter,” Jesse reiterated.

Lukas raised an eyebrow. “I _thought_ that was what I said, but, uhh...”

“Yup that’s totally…” Axel trailed off. “It’s getting dark and stuff.”

Correction. It was already dark and stuff.

“You’re right…” said Olivia, “we should hurry,” 

“I totally agree,” Lukas agreed.

“Wait, but can I just say something?” Axel paused, then finally said with a smile. “I agree too.” He supposed Axel didn’t want to be outdone in compliments. Lukas had a strange way of making his compliments sound like insults and his regular random statements sound like compliments.

“I say we build a treehouse,” Olivia said.

Axel argued. “That’ll take forever and we’ll be exposed while we do it. We just need a quick and dirty hut.”

“Look, whatever it is,” Lukas asserted, “we gotta do it _fast_.”

Axel and Olivia both gave Lukas a look that either meant, ‘only Jesse gets to interject in our random pointless arguments,’ or meant, ‘after failing so abysmally, _you’re_ trying to order _us_ around?’ With how annoyed Axel looked, Jesse was willing to bet on the latter.

Lukas raised an eyebrow. “What?”

Jesse didn’t know if he was _playing_ stupid, or if he just was.

Olivia ignored him. “In a hut we won’t know what’s coming until it’s knocking on our door.”

“A treehouse is going to be spider town,” said Axel. “ _I_ , _hate_ , _spiders_.”

Jesse noticed he’d been frowning at Lukas when Lukas glanced over at him and quickly broke eye-contact. So did Jesse.

_Okay, chill out, Jesse,_ he ordered himself.

Jesse realized he wasn’t _wrong_ to be mad, but he needed to get over it. His anger was starting to affect his thinking. As much as it grated against his nerves, Jesse did his best to remove Petra as part of the issue and just focus.

_We were all freaking out,_ he told himself. _He was panicking, the world’s never ended before, and being angry will do **no** good. We’re all in the same boat now. I just need to focus on getting everyone to safety._

He drew a deep and flustered breath, but as Axel and Olivia continued to argue, Jesse couldn’t seem to focus, and no matter how hard he tried he couldn’t _not_ think about Petra.

_I… should have saved her._

No. He couldn’t think about that now. He’d done everything he could. Petra wouldn’t want him to blame himself. But… what _would_ she want him to do?

_“Okay look,”_ she had told him mere hours ago. He could still remember her commanding tone and even now felt like she was straightening him out. _“I know you’ve had your tiffs, but Lukas is **my** friend, and I’m not just going to let you hate him without giving him a decent chance.”_

A decent chance… he’d _given_ him a decent chance. He’d practically saved his life, and _Lukas_ …!

Lukas was her friend. She was the one who’d stuck up for him. Then again, he wondered if she would stick up for him now.

What was he thinking? Of course she would. Petra wouldn’t want him to blame himself, but she _certainly_ wouldn’t want him to blame Lukas either. Even if he _was_ the one to blame… Petra would want Jesse to be nice to him—she had _asked_ Jesse to be nice to him. If this frustration—this _anger_ —was all about _her_ … did Jesse have a _right_ to stay mad at him? Wouldn’t it be insulting to not only disregard what could possibly be her last wish, but turn around and do the opposite? Treat her friend with contempt? When he thought of it like that, it was an easy decision.

Jesse bit his lip and pushed aside his excuses.

He just had to… play nice. That didn’t mean he had to like him, though.

_Well… it would be nice to get Axel and Olivia to stop arguing about nothing for once._

Whether he wanted to acknowledge it or not, Lukas had beaten them nine years straight for a reason. He was always the best builder there, and now, he was the best builder _here_. Jesse wanted to resent that fact, but with his newfound revelation in mind, he determined instead to use it. 

Jesse was solid on not letting Lukas’ failure influence the way he treated him, so he sighed and said reluctantly—and admittedly not _completely_ devoid of annoyance—“What do you think, Lukas?”

Lukas looked surprised and somewhat confused. “Huh?”

“Yeah, _huh_?” said Axel, also confused and not at all trying to mask his own annoyance.

“You’re asking me?” Lukas wondered further, pointing at himself.

_No, I’m asking the bush behind you whose name happens to be Lukas,_ Jesse wanted to say, but refrained from it and instead said something equally patronizing and potentially regretful. “Your name _is_ Lukas, right? That hasn’t changed in the past ten minutes?”

“Uh, well, no…” Lukas stammered, looking at the ground and rubbing the back of his head.

_Okay, so maybe not the nicest thing to say…_

Jesse took a breath. He had to stay cool. If not for practicality’s sake, then for Petra’s.

“Look, I know you guys don’t want to hear this,” Jesse said, “but Lukas is the best builder we have. So, Lukas, what do you think we should do?”

Lukas hesitated, looking slightly nervous with all eyes now on him.

“Well,” he started, “Dirt huts _are_ quick, but… they’re not the _most_ practical for all intents and purposes. A treehouse gives a better vantage. Not to mention it’s more comfortable and—if you build it right—spider-proof.” Lukas paused. “ _And…_ fireproof.”

Jesse quirked an eyebrow at him, trying not to scowl. 

_Nice, Lukas. Reeeal nice._

“Okay,” said Jesse. “We’re building a treehouse.”

Axel wilted and drawled, “Great.”

« … »

They began by punching wood. Since he didn’t have a fist to punch with, Reuben kept guard.

It was weird actually building with their building rival of an entire a decade. Jesse had seen what he could do with a plan, but now he was seeing what he could do freestyle. While Lukas mostly fell in line behind what Jesse did, he had a thought process all his own. 

For the most, part, they didn’t communicate much.

As they gathered more materials, Lukas extended a hand and a block of wood to Jesse. As he did, he wore an expression that looked almost pleading, almost as if he were saying, ‘ _Give me a chance_ ’.

Jesse exhaled in determination. He took the block, managing a slight smile.

_Okay._

« … »

“If I wake up with a spider on my face,” Axel grumbled, eyeing Olivia, “I’m gonna expect _you_ to deal with it.”

Olivia crossed her arms. “Lower your expectations, Axel.”

Lukas randomly cut in with, “Well maybe if we had built into the tree a little bit more—it could’ve…” Lukas noticed all of them giving him looks ranging from, ‘Seriously, dude?’ to ‘Oh shut up,’ and quickly backpedaled. “Never mind. It’s—This is fine. It’s good.”

“Looks good, guys.” Jesse said, and they made their way inside.

« … »

A small fire burned steadily in the center of the small wooden room, providing warmth and light to an otherwise dark and chilly night.

Lukas had managed to pick up some of the rocky red stuff from the Nether which he called ‘netherrack’, and between his netherrack and Jesse’s flint and steel that he just happened to have, they were able to get a fire going. For something he’d had no reason in taking with him, the trinket sure was coming in handy. According to Lukas, netherrack burned forever, so they wouldn’t even have to worry about feeding it.

How a fire up in a tree worked, Jesse didn’t know, but apparently Lukas did. Fire spread quickly though, so if it was going to, it would have burned down by now. Jesse seemed to recall Petra telling him that it could be useful to have a good builder around—no matter what personal issues he had with the guy. Maybe she was right.

After the fire was going, Jesse, Olivia and Reuben sat together besides it, embracing the warmth. Axel on the other hand had elected to stay standing, leaning against the wall, while Lukas had chosen a spot on the ground by the corner, away from them. The group had since fallen into silence. The quiet suited him just fine. The time to think did his mind good.

Axel walked by them to the other side of the room.

“Oh, man,” he said out of nowhere, sounding shocked.

“What?” Olivia asked.

Axel’s tone remained the same as he said, “I’m going to tell you something. You have to _promise_ not to freak out.”

Jesse inhaled nervously and asked, “What is it?”

Axel pulled something out of his pocket and climatically announced, “I… have _cookies_.”

Jesse stopped holding his breath. Well that was a relief. Both for his fragile psyche, _and_ his wambling stomach.

“One for me…” Axel said, separating one from the others, then walked over to Olivia and handed one down to her. “One for Olivia…”

Olivia took it with a smile, and next he walked over to Jesse. “One for Jesse.”

Jesse smiled. “Thanks, Axel.”

Just as he was about to bite into it, Jesse thought he felt eyes on him, and glanced up to see Lukas huddled in the corner against the wall, staring at him. Lukas turned away in embarrassment as soon as he saw Jesse return the look just as Axel offered a cookie to Reuben.

“And one for Reuben.” Axel looked over at Lukas. “Sorry, Lukas,” he said without a hint of sorrow in his tone. “I only have four.”

“Oh, no, it’s—it’s all right,” Lukas stammered, clearly trying to sound nonchalant and doing a pretty unconvincing job of it. “I’m not that hungry anyway. I’ll just… grab something in the morning. Or something.”

Jesse felt a pang of guilt as his better nature kicked in, and the selfless, do-gooder in him awoke, whispering, _“Give him the cookie…”_

_Oh, but… cookie…_ his stomach complained.

Jesse stared down at his cookie, and the cookie seemed to speak to him.

_“Jesse,”_ the cookie said. _“You know what you have to do.”_

_I mean… it’s **one** cookie,_ Jesse argued.

_“If you were in his shoes,”_ the cookie questioned, _“how would **you** feel?”_

How _would_ he feel?

If… if Jesse were in his shoes… if the roles were reversed—If he were stuck with the Ocelots without Axel, Olivia, or even Reuben…

_That would be **awful**!_

Then the other side of his brain kicked in, the side that really wanted that cookie, and he started reasoning.

_Yeah, but my friends aren’t the Ocelots! Aiden is a jerk, Gill and—whatshername are almost just as bad… My friends aren’t like that, they’re awesome. They’re not bullies._

But when it came down to it, if Jesse’s friends were missing while he was stuck with another group, it wouldn’t have mattered to him if they were the nicest people ever. He probably couldn’t even go on. Heck, he could be with the Order of the Stone and still feel alone if he had lost everyone he cared about and didn’t even know if they were still alive.

_That would be… awful…_

Jesse was reminded of what he was thinking earlier, that they were all in the same boat, but then he realized… 

_**Oh** … We’re **not** all in the same boat._

They all had in common that they’d all lost their world—their homes… but Jesse _had_ his friends. Lukas had no one. Thinking about it like that, it was amazing that he was handling it as well as he was.

_If I was in his shoes… I would have fallen apart by now…_

Jesse stood to his feet and made his way to the cold corner where Lukas sat alone. Jesse held his cookie out to him, prompting from Lukas a look of surprise.

“Take it, Lukas,” Jesse said.

“Oh, no, no,” Lukas muttered, averting his eyes. “I—I-I can’t do that.”

_Great!_ exclaimed his inner cookie monster. _Works for me!_

Jesse immediately kicked the thought right back out of his head. He couldn’t give up now. The cookie would _kill_ him.

“I insist,” Jesse said with a smile, and before Lukas could refuse again, Jesse shoved it into his hands.

Lukas returned Jesse’s smile with a slight, almost guilty smile of his own and tilted his head down. “Thank you, Jesse.”

Jesse walked back over to his place and sat down, feeling good about himself despite his persistent hunger. He knew he’d done the right thing, and at least he could rest a little easier knowing that.

“That was for you, Jesse. Not _him_ ,” Axel said, crossing his arms.

Jesse gave Axel a disapproving look, hoping he would get the hint to drop it. Axel did, but if the scowl he wore was any indication, he didn’t do so willingly.

Reuben looked up at Jesse sadly, then dropped his cookie in front of him and nudged it with his nose.

Jesse smiled in endearment. “ _No_ , Reuben. You eat. I’ll be fine.” He scratched Reuben’s head.

Reuben sniffed at the cookie several times before he finally ate it.

The quiet returned as the four of them ate their cookies. The whole room descended into a somber sort of tension as Axel continued to stare disgruntled at the wall and Lukas continued to stare thoughtful at the floor. Finally it was Olivia who broke the silence.

“If you had to…” she said, and Jesse looked to Olivia. Olivia was looking to Lukas, “which would you rather fight…?”

Lukas perked up, raptly looking her in the eyes.

“A hundred chicken-sized zombies, or ten zombie-sized chickens?”

Jesse wondered if Lukas had ever faced a chicken-sized zombie and raised an eyebrow in curiosity.

“Choose wisely,” Jesse inserted, a slight grin on his face.

Though he still looked forlorn, Lukas chuckled softly. “Heh… That’s… a good one. Let me think.”

“How can you guys joke at a time like this?” Axel grumbled. At first he just sounded angry, but as he went on he slowly started to sound sad and vulnerable, and even his face changed to match his tone. “Petra is still out there. She’s all by herself… there’s nothing positive about that.”

Jesse understood where Axel was coming from. Jesse hated to act like everything was just fine too, but they couldn’t let themselves fall into despair. All they could do right now was hope and pray that she would be okay, and try to stay strong for her sake.

Axel was just letting off steam, but Jesse couldn’t stifle Olivia’s effort to withhold their team sanity just because of Axel, so Jesse took a breath and said reluctantly, “We can’t just mope. We gotta keep our spirits high.”

“No, we _should_ be moping,” Axel said. “That’s exactly what we should be doing.”

“Axel,” Olivia rebuked.

“The jokes are…” Axel trailed off. “I don’t know… it doesn’t feel right.”

Jesse empathized.

_If that’s how you feel, buddy._

“All right,” Jesse conceded. “No more jokes, then.”

Hopefully Axel would feel better later, but Jesse didn’t have the energy to push the issue further.

Axel’s face fell downcast, and he wandered away again. “Sorry, I’m just…” but he didn’t finish.

Jesse decided to spare him and affirmed, “We _all_ are.”

Another moment of silence.

“Fine. Then, uh…” Lukas got to his feet and walked up a bit closer to the fire. “We should get some rest. We’ve gotta start looking for this temple as early as we can.” Jesse watched as Lukas, seeming somewhat awkwardly nervous, went on. “Now, my guess is, if we start at the portal—and kind of split up—”

“Woah, what are you doing?” Axel cut him off.

Lukas frowned, taking up a more assertive posture with his hands to his hips. “Did I do something to you?” he wondered rhetorically. “I’d _really_ like to know. Because you keep getting on my case for what seems like _no reason_.”

Axel glowered at him. “It’s more what you _didn’t_ do... don’t you think?”

Jesse tensed as he watched the scene unfold and silently pleaded, _Don’t make me take sides in this._

If this conflict escalated, he knew he would have to, but he really hoped he could squelch the argument before then. For the time being, he couldn’t agree with anyone and stop the argument, so he just said, “We’ll figure it out in the morning.”

“Maybe you’re right,” Lukas sighed. “I’m pretty exhausted.”

_Yeah,_ Jesse thought, _You and me both._

“We should just—” Lukas started, but Axel cut him off again.

“Jesse means _us_ , not _you_ ,” he barked.

Jesse gave Axel a stern look. “Axel…” he emphasized, repeating slowly, “we’ll figure it out in the morning.”

This was supposed to be a time of peace, a time of _rest_. After everything they had just been through, why did Axel have to turn this into an argument?

Axel scowled again. “I’m sorry Jesse, but I’m not gonna sit here and listen to this guy telling us what’s what.”

_He’s gonna make me take sides…_

Jesse drew in a tired breath.

He knew who _he wanted_ to side with. He knew who he _should_ side with. He was _loath_ to side with _either_ of them. However at this point it would never end if Jesse didn’t step in.

“Axel,” Jesse said, “Lukas was just trying to help.”

“See?” Lukas said, gesturing to Jesse.

“No. I _don’t_ ,” Axel grumbled. “All I see is a jerk who thinks he can walk into a room and start bossing everyone around.”

“I’m just trying to get ready for tomorrow,” Lukas argued.

“You’re the only one wearing that stupid jacket.” Axel snipped. “Don’t tell _us_ what to do.”

Lukas looked down at his Ocelot jacket in shock as though Axel had just spit on it. From the look on Lukas’ face he may as well have. Lukas’ expression darkened, and he articulated slowly and deliberately, “Take. That. _Back_.”

Axel shrugged. “Can’t. Wouldn’t.”

Lukas snapped. “You know what? I get to wear this jacket because I know how to build, but that doesn’t mean I don’t know how to _break_ things.”

Jesse was surprised at first, but that only lasted a moment. Now that he was starting to understand the flip side of this issue, he really wasn’t all that surprised.

“Your threats don’t scare me, now that we know how you _really_ are,” Axel boasted, crossing his arms.

For the first time in their lives, they were on the offensive against Lukas, and from Lukas’ perspective he was entirely outmatched.

Lukas then turned to Jesse and blasted, “Jesse, your friend is _way_ out of line! I wasn’t going to bring it up, but I can only take so much.”

_Here we go…_

Jesse couldn’t believe it had come down to this. Here they were, Lukas had just threatened his friend after failing at the most critical moment, and Jesse was not only about to defend him but he was about straighten out Axel, one of his best friends. Why? Because Jesse was the leader, and having time to think he’d realized his _own_ mistake. In snapping off at Lukas in the Nether, he’d given license for Axel to do the same. In a way, he felt responsible, and he was going to fix this.

As for the threat, if any threat to Axel meant him getting hurt was actually possible, Jesse might have been a little worried. As it was, Axel could still kill Lukas by sitting on him, and Lukas wouldn’t stand a chance against the three of them if he actually decided to attack him. Axel knew that, and he was _trying_ to provoke him. Any other day, under any other circumstances, Jesse might be on his side anyway, but not now. What Jesse said now was critical, and their cooperation with each other was _essential_.

So, Jesse refrained from heaving a deep, frustrated sigh, and pushed himself to his feet, mentally preparing for the backlash he was about to receive.

“Take it easy, Axel,” Jesse said.

“Easy?!” Axel questioned, seemingly in disbelief that he wasn’t being supported. “He threatened me!”

“He’s not gonna do anything,” Jesse insisted.

Axel glared at Lukas again, stalking over to him and explicitly ignoring everything Jesse said.

“Haven’t you done enough damage for one day?” he demanded, then coldly added, “Petra might be _dead_ because of you.”

Axel shoved Lukas back a step and Lukas stood there looking more furious by the second. The two of them refused to break eye-contact.

Olivia got up and stood beside Jesse. “You’re taking this too far, Axel.”

Lukas glared up at Axel, seething, and even trembling slightly. Right when Jesse thought he really might snap, finally Lukas mustered in a level tone, “I don’t have to take this.”

Lukas turned away from Axel and started toward the hatch to their treehouse. “Listen, why don’t I just leave, and let you guys hash this out?”

Olivia shot forward and blocked his path. “You can’t leave!” Olivia insisted, seemingly in disbelief, her face suddenly awash with worry. “It’s dangerous out there!”

“I can take care of myself.” Lukas glanced back at Axel. “It’s what Axel wants, right?”

Axel crossed his arms and callously grumbled, “Let him leave, if he wants to leave.”

“Axel!” Olivia gasped. “Jesse, stop this! Tell them they’re being stupid!”

If Jesse understood one thing, it was making decisions. If Lukas wanted to leave, it wasn’t Jesse’s place to deny him that choice. However, at the moment, this wasn’t about whether Lukas wanted to stay or leave. This was about how Jesse’s team saw him. Up until today, Lukas had been their enemy, but right now, they didn’t need enemies. What they needed now was support. What _Lukas_ needed was support, and Jesse needed to make it clear to them that Lukas was part of their team, bluntly, or _painfully_ if need be.

Jesse steeled his nerves and said, “You’re not going anywhere.”

Axel frowned. “But Jesse—”

“That’s enough!” Jesse snapped at him, putting his foot down and stating with the final authority. “We’re all on the same team now. He’s _staying_.”

With that, amazingly, everyone fell silent.

That was it. Jesse himself hadn’t realized the truth and severity behind his words until he spoke them. Lukas was part of the team now—part of _his_ team.

When finally Jesse sighed and took a seat again, everyone but Axel settled back down. While Olivia took up her place by the fire again, Lukas chose a spot a block away from Jesse, instead of staying secluded by himself in the corner. It seemed he too realized that for good or ill, they had to stick together. They had no choice… but at least they had cookies.

After a long moment’s silence, Lukas spoke up again.

“Zombie-sized chickens,” he said. “That’s what I would fight.”

Olivia perked and asked in a curious tone, “Why’s that?”

Lukas seemed to get smaller and muttered weakly, “Because I’m starving…”

After Petra saved him from the little zombie in the forest, Jesse couldn’t agree more.

“Good choice.”

Thunder sounded in the distance. Not a minute later, rain began to fall, and they… didn’t have a roof. He hadn’t thought about rain. Well, it was a good thing netherrack couldn’t even be extinguished by water.

“Of _course_ …” Olivia moaned.

“Rain is better than monsters.” Lukas said, and Jesse nodded in agreement. Another long moment passed, and Lukas muttered, “Thanks for keeping me around, Jesse.”

Jesse gave him a soft grin. “Yeah.”

After all was said and done, it was finally sinking in that in light of the situation, Lukas really was part of their team now, and as long as he was, Jesse was responsible for him. Whether he liked Lukas or not. But… if Jesse was honest with himself… he didn’t hate Lukas. Not anymore.

« … »

But it is not this way with you, but the one who is the greatest among you must become like the youngest, and the leader like the servant.

— Luke 22:26

* * *

#### Author’s Notes

And there you have it. The scene that made me fall in love MCSM that I still use as an example of one of the most well written and effective scenes I’ve personally ever seen. It has everything, payoff for foreshadowing, subtext, symbolism, a balanced atmosphere, beautiful music, a steady build up in tension with a climax to the scene that makes its mark flawlessly regardless of the choices you make, and it does all of those things superbly. Just this scene alone is so underappreciated that sometimes I feel like there isn’t another soul on this planet who could really understand just how perfect this scene truly is for this story. Needless to say, this is without a doubt, to this day, my favorite scene in the entire series, because of everything I said before, and because it just so perfectly, simply, and succinctly encompasses everything that makes Minecraft: Story Mode such an amazing story that I still hold in my heart as one of the best in the world. It’s quiet while speaking volumes, it’s simple yet infinitely complex, and it is what you make it. It’s… well… it’s Minecraft. :)

So you may have noticed that aside from taking out the zombie at the beginning and a few other very minor things, the events of this chapter were borderline exact to the ones in the game itself. That’s because of all the aforementioned reasons, and out of respect for one of the greatest scenes in the entire game. I really tried to only change things when necessary, and I’m honestly quite sad that there’s no possible way to see the other ending to this scene where Jesse lets Lukas leave. I love both endings and the results, and it’s unfortunate that sometimes I have to choose between phenomenal and astounding. But hey, I guess that’s why we have the game itself. :)

And finally, because I’ve been growing quite fond of these, I leave you with this:  
“Oh man,” Jesse muttered as he reached into his pocket. “I’m going to tell you guys something, but you have to promise not to freak out.”  
Everyone stood on edge and finally Jesse said, “I… have carrots.”  
Everyone wilted in disappointment and Lukas piped up, “Yeah, I think I’ll pass, thanks.”

That’s all for now! Have a wonderful weekend y’all! And I’ll see you in two weeks! ;D

\- How the Cookie Grumbled — The cookie was such an iconic part of this scene that we actually still call it simply, ‘The Cookies Scene’. I really wanted to draw a lot of attention to that cookie decision, and with that being said, the cookie ‘talking’ to Jesse wasn’t something I planned out or anything. That just kinda happened. XD

\- Lukas’ OCD — I was really tempted for the sake of flow to take out the part with Lukas criticizing the build, but even _that_ I couldn’t bring myself to change. 3’: This whole part is just so perfect! I really wanted to include it because this is the first and most classic example of Lukas being super nitpicky, and I didn’t want to lose it. XD Seriously, no matter which one I choose or how hard or fast I mash that button, he always criticizes my build! DX

\- Out of the Fire, into the Zombie — Yeah I took that part out because this way is better for painting a literary picture, and it was only there for a game prompt anyway. XD

#### Choice Notes

\- Build a Treehouse —You have no idea how tempted I was to just have Jesse say, “Guys, this is freaking Minecraft, let’s just build a dirt hut on top of a tree!” XD But yeah, I did this one because… well, reasons, but primarily because I thought it was what Lukas would pick, and Axel not getting his way feeds more into the explosive argument that he instigates, so it was more fitting. (Especially if Lukas was the reason he didn’t get his way. I don’t think Jesse thought that far ahead. ;P)

\- Give Cookie — Wait, did you _not_ give him the cookie? What kind of monster are you? >:( And what world do I live in where I have to explain why I _wasn’t_ stingy with a _digital_ cookie? Oh, for the story? Well… because… Jesse isn’t a piece of trash. Like SOME people. ):[ Haha, kidding, kidding. XD Still, I shouldn’t have to explain this one. ;P And For those wondering why they didn’t just split the cookie, that… doesn’t work in Minecraft. :P


End file.
